Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hacker’s paintbrush swept across the canvas with mechanical precision, not one stroke wasted as he brought to life the image of himself as a renegade cowboy on his trusty bleach-white steed. His pistol held high, he’d almost look like an outlaw if he weren’t too vain to cover his face with a bandana. He retracted from the piece, squinting and examining it from various angles as he appraised it. 

“It’s missing something; the resemblance is off,” he muttered to himself, 5 o’clock shadow burgeoning from his weathered face. His wig shined with oil, disheveled, doubtlessly from his pillow. “Ah! Yes! It should look more handsome! Highlight my chin, whiten the teeth, slim the waist–”

“OOH!” Delete exclaimed beyond the door of Hacker’s lab. A daub of seafoam gouache desecrated the focal point of Hacker’s masterpiece as the man nearly jumped out of his exoskeleton at the sudden intrusion, his cowboy now faceless. “I just can’t wait for the Father’s Day Parade!” 

Hacker’s expression began a speedrun of the 7 stages of grief but stopped at the third, a red mist falling over him that made his stomach churn and created an unbearable tenseness in his joints that threatened to combust in response to the pressure. He whipped the door to his lab open, intentionally weaponizing it against any duncebucket that got too close.

Hacker erupted with a chest-rumbling scream that nearly blew out his speakers, distortion crackling as it reached its peak. Buzz and Delete, watching television in the small, open concept living space adjacent to the control room of the Wreaker, flinched reflexively, zaps of electricity streaking between Delete’s antennae as he leapt into Buzz’s arms.

“Gosh, boss, you don’t look so good,” Buzz remarked, his face loosening at the distraction of the grease collecting on the underarm of Hacker’s undershirt.

“Wow, uh, yeah, are you okay?” Delete said, still clinging to Buzz but stunned into bluntness by his boss’s purple-and-yellow fleece ducky pajama pants, dirt lining the ankles and a nauseating rainbow of stains dotting them throughout. “I thought you hated getting dirty,” he added, inviting a terse shushing from his companion.

“What I hate is having my creative genius interrupted by a couple of pathetic plebeians who can’t appreciate the finer things, let alone understand them!” Hacker growled, baring his yellowing teeth. “Silence. Do I make myself clear ?” He lowered his voice to a rumble as he cornered the two bots on the sofa.

Buzz coughed dryly as Hacker's rotten breath assaulted his scent receptors, his tongue a curling taco shell hanging from his massive lips like a baby with the flu. “Yep–” he tried to finish, but wretched instead. Delete followed in tow, covering his muzzle with his hands, Hacker ripping them away with his larger one.

“What in the devil are you gagging for?”

“Nuttin’, b-baws,” Delete croaked before coughing again. 

“M-must be sometin’ goin’ around.” said Buzz.

“That’s the first I’ve heard of it! You’re taunting me, you little rubes!” Hacker stuck an accusatory finger in their faces, the two of them taking note of the grime caked under his fingernails.

“L-listen baws, we’re sorry, awright? We didn’t mean it,” Buzz choked.

“Yeah, I just got all worked up over the Father’s Day Parade,” Delete whimpered, shrinking down before his antennae perked up with a flash of static. “Hey! We should all go to the parade! That’ll cheer you up!”

“Oh, what fun!” Hacker cooed, acid dripping from every cloying syllable. “Hey, maybe you can enter me into the competition! I am the only one who takes responsibility around here, after all!”

“Yeah! You kind of are like our dad, aren’t ya, baws?” Delete said with a giggle.

“Hey, wait a minute.” Buzz said with a knowing glare. “We’ve been the ones grabbin’ your Dine’n’Dash orders and doin’ your laundry for the past month! Sometimes we even gotta wake you up so you don’t stay in bed all da–”

“ZIP IT!” Hacker said, fluid spraying onto his henchman as he said the consonants. “If you two were my children, I’d dispose of myself in the black hole so I’d no longer have to bear with the shame.”

“Real sad,” Buzz muttered under his breath with a sneer before he preemptively flinched in anticipation, eyes filled with horror.

“We all know how you feel about me, Buzz ,” Hacker spit with a nasty tone underlying his name, subverting his henchman’s expectations. “Too bad nobody cares.” A deranged grin flashed across his cracked lips.

“So…no parade?” Delete said.

“What is with you and this parade! It’s like some…sick thing!” Hacker said, gesticulating wildly. “Mediocre men gallivant throughout Tikiville on cheap set props at a snail’s pace just because they play tea party with their brats? On television ? The bar is so low it’s telling lies in the Aquari-yum abyss! Even I could do a better job, and I hate those screeching ankle-biters with a passion!”

Hacker seized, his outrage vanishing instantly in favor of a mural of clarity, a placid trance. “I could do a better job. Television. Everyone will be watching. Everyone.” His teeth gnashed and contorted into the stuff of nightmares, the corners of his mouth upturned as if pulled by hooks. It started small, a titter, then a chortle, then a chuckle, until his cackling became hysterical, gasping for air between shrill howls.

Buzz and Delete exchanged a glance, searching for understanding in each other’s faces. When they found none, they resorted to forcing themselves to laugh along, apprehension forming in their furrowed brows.

“Boys, how would you like to make this year’s Father’s Day a fiasco of felonious fraudulence?” Hacker asked, his disheveled appearance making his normal mania more concerning for a reason the bots couldn’t identify.

“I-I dunno if I like the sound of that, baws,” Delete said, wringing his hands. “Father’s Day makes a lot of people happy.”

“Did I ask if you wanted to make everyone ‘ happy ?’” Hacker said, putting a dopey inflection on the last word. “I’m going to wow the judges with my patriarchal perfection, win the Cyber Dad of the Year Award, and when everyone is watching me on the parade float at home and in Tikiville, I’ll put out a frequency that will make all of Cyberspace fall under my command!”

“Uh, baws?” Buzz interjected. “One little tiny hole in the plan. You don’t have kids, remember?”

“Not now, my dithered dunderhead,” Hacker started, heading to his recharger chair and typing commands on the control station. “I’ll make one. Now, let’s see what the Bank of The Hacker has in savings for the supplies. A small fortune, I’m sure. I have been cutting corners lately.” He chuckled, his frugality impressing himself.

All of the green drained from his face when the numbers appeared before him. “Impossible…I’ve hardly spent a thing this month!” He gasped. “I’ve been robbed !”

“Erm, not exactly, baws,” Buzz said, a corrective but reluctant finger raised. “Them Dine’n’Dash orders really add up, especially when it’s for every meal…then there’s the delivery fee, the kitchen fee, the thievin’ fee, and don’t even get me started on tips, with how big your orders get…”

“A genius needs energy to fuel his superior mind!” Hacker retorted, obscuring the paunch that spilled over his waistband. “Whether it’s salad or ramen noodles doesn’t make a difference!”

“He didn’t say nuttin’ about noodles, baws,” Delete said. “But the DVD box set of all 40 seasons of the Telebubbies wasn’t cheap, neither…”

Hacker scoffed. “What about you two , eating me out of house and home, huh? Using my electricity to watch television? No matter.”

“Hmm…" the large man looked them both up and down. "Do either of you have an interest in theater?”

Buzz and Delete stood in the control room wearing matching outfits–propeller hats, rainbow striped shirts, and blue overalls, holding comically large lollipops.

“Now, you will not speak unless you have the opportunity to gush about my many accolades, achievements, positive attributes, and endearing quirks,” Hacker began, primped and back in his everyday coat. “Otherwise, when I speak to you, you will simply say ‘ yes, father ’ or ‘ no, father. ‘”

“Yes, fadda!” Buzz responded.

“Yes, baws!” Delete chirped.

“Yes FATHER!” Their boss barked.

“Yes FADDA!” The bots mimicked.

“So, baws, are we playing your kids as us , or as characters?” Buzz asked.

Delete raised his hand. “Ooh! Can my name be Kieran?”

“Can I still be Buzz?”

“No, wait wait wait! I wanna be a George !” 

“Zip it!” Hacker reprimanded. “Your names are Hannibal and Oliverrotto, respectively,” he said, glancing at Buzz, then Delete.

“Ham bowl?” Buzz asked.

“Oliver..r…l…I can’t do that tongue-rolly thingy, baws.”

“So does the ‘yes, fadda’ thing start now, or only when we’re outside the Wreaker?”

“Can I just be Ollie?”

“Are the lollipops part of the costume or can I eat it? What if I drop it and it gets a buncha shmutz all over it? 5 second rule?”

“ENOUGH!” Hacker exploded, then stomped towards his lab. “You metal-brained muppets can’t listen for five minutes, let alone keep up the act until Father’s Day!”

“Baws–fadda! Wait! We’ll listen, we promise!” Delete pleaded.

“Yeh! We just gotta work out the kinks a lil’ bit!” followed Buzz.

“Please don’t jump into the black hole of Cyberspace!” Delete begged, voice cracking with desperation.

“I’ve got more brain power in my pinky than the two of you combined,” Hacker said, swinging the door to the lab open. “And as soon as I conquer Cyberspace, you’re as good as scrap metal. Ciao!” He gave a coy wave and slammed the door shut with himself on the inside of the lab, the outside covered with the image of Buzz and Delete sliced in half by a red “no” symbol.

Chapter Text

“Whaddaya think, Bytey?” what appeared to be a young person with black sheep-like horns and a devil’s tail asked as they settled into the seat of an abandoned train car in the dead of night. “Pretty cozy, innit?” they said with a flip of their gray twin braid from their shoulder to their pale back. Their skin was mostly smooth, with the exception of a vertical line that ran from bottom eyelid to chin on each cheek where the metallic facade of skin separated into sections. Their black and mesh tube top, bikini bottoms, and black chaps accented with a green racing stripe didn’t at all give them protection from the climate, but that didn’t seem to bother them.

“You’re getting a lotta mileage outta that word,” said the raspberry cotton candy-haired borg of a similar age and build, only having a tail that ended in a heart and slightly smaller horns. “I’d save ‘cozy’ for a couple hundred renovations from now.” An in-ear microphone hung from their right ear, though he spoke at an appropriate volume for the setting.

The leather on the seats peeled and dug uncomfortably into the back of their knees, wearing only lilac shorts and knee highs for leg coverage. They instinctively draped their cropped pink jacket over their pink tube top accented with a yellow bow, cursing the ever-skimpy trends for young borgs. It’s a lot easier to dress scanty when you don’ have temperature receptors, thought the borg with a huff.

The rusting metal of the interior, ceiling fraying from decay, the dank smell and detritus covering shattered windows was the least disturbing part about it. There wasn’t a spot of litter, graffiti, abandoned luggage, or even evidence of nature attempting to reclaim the land from the outside. There weren't even tracks that the train car could have stopped on, it just sat in the middle of deserted land as if it had been dumped there.

“I’m not talkin’ about the train, lobo,” The twin braided one said, running the bottoms of their black and green rollerskates on the back of the seat in front of them. “I mean here. The Northern Frontier.”

“ Gadzooks , sure is quiet,”  Bytey squeaked, adjusting their rectangular spectacles with their pink-gloved hands. “Quiet” didn’t cover half of it. Not one chirp of an insect, cry of a bird overhead, purr of a speeding Cybercoupe, howl of a coyote, or even a leaf rustling filled the air. The only thing they could hear was the ticking of their H-drive, fans whirring within their chest, and their companion’s wheels grating over the torn leather seat. 

They wanted to reach for their PDA to listen to music, but the battery was drained long ago. It was conceivable to them that spending long enough in a void of life such as this could easily drive anyone to madness–they already felt it setting in after what, an hour? “Doesn’ anyone live here?”

“ Jammit , Byte, were you daydreaming again?” said the gray-haired one. “There’s a giant sign that literally says ‘Home of The Hacker.’ Why would we go somewhere that we can’t even uh… forage from?”

“Well, maybe this could be our forever home, Pix,” Bytey said, a slight smile forming on their fanged, canine-like lips. “We go out for food n’ stuff during the day, then come back here at night. He’ll never suspect a place like this!”

“ He has guys that would find us in an instant if we got too comfortable, and his numbers are only growing. Face it, Byte, we’re vagabonds. You think I’m made of snelfus? Do you know how fraggin’ much it would cost to travel from here to somewhere habitable every day? I only dumped some on this trip ‘cuz Our Lord of Chaos has some junk that would sell for a scrapload .”

“Well, it was jus’ a thought…” Byte said, gazing down at their sneakers as they tapped the worn pink tips together. “Plus, when I get my big break n’ become a super popular cyber idol, we’ll have enough snelfus to get a big big house, n’ bodyguards, n’ as much food as we can eat, n’--”

“Yeah, okay, whatever,” Pix condescended, looking through the other borg with eyes glazed. “C’mon, bubby, on to Our Lord of Chaos’s House of Worship . If we keep wastin’ time we won’t make it by dawn.” They kept using that title, though Byte struggled to understand how serious they were. They’d only ever seen the Chaos Lord in question through the dim glow of the other’s PDA.

The two of them arrived at Hacker's hangar after walking for what felt like an eternity (but was likely 30 minutes tops), shivering in the brisk air of the wee hours of the morning. Pix quaked but for a different reason; they pulled open their cracked PDA, a green and black device vaguely resembling a Squak Pad to compare the real thing to the photo on the webpage entitled:

Hieronymous Hacker / The Hacker - Permafail malding metrosexual tough guy making his mommy issues Cyberspace’s problem. Totes not gay.

The forum thread contained hundreds of pages of messages documenting the man’s escapades with the most humorous and embarrassing details taking center stage. Photos of his wig flying off in the wind, brutal criticisms of failed evil plots, speculation about sexuality and mental illness, and language running the gamut from slurs to hate speech filled the screen. Pix had been particularly surprised Motherboard hadn’t shut the whole forum down yet. Maybe the wicked place had served as a valuable archive, as obscene as it was.

Pix giggled with a devious glint in their mauve eyes as their H-drive thumped against the PDA, held close to their chest with black fingerless gloves.

“I don’ know if this is a great idea, Pixel,” Byte said. “He’s prolly got cameras n’ security n’ evil lasers to cut us up into cubes. And there’s a big steel door.”

“As if that’s ever stopped me,” Pixel chortled, strolling with the unwarranted swagger of youth. “You know the routine, grab my hand,” they said, beckoning Byte. They squeezed their eyes shut, channeling the patience of a monk and the cunning of a succubus as they grasped Byte’s hand. Pixel clenched every bit of their body, nearly shaking in an attempt to make happen the un-happenable.

“Wowie zowie! It’s shirtless Dracula!” Byte exclaimed.

“GAH-H-H-H!” Pixel yelled, the end stuttering as the two of them flickered out of the exterior of the hangar and teleported to the inside with a flurry of shimmering squares of various colors.

The two landed on the floor with an impact that sent the two looking over their shoulders to see if anyone had noticed the sound. They waited a few seconds for footsteps, then trekked across the checkerboard linoleum illuminated by the light of the camera on Pixel’s PDA. They snapped pictures of the unknown surroundings–nobody had ever uploaded a picture of the inside of the hangar to the forum. 

The Grim Wreaker looked so much larger than the photos had depicted it. Arguably, it was the only cool thing about Hacker with its sleek design, green-tinted windows, and a half-bubble at the bottom in the front that opened to release various gadgets.

That familiar treacherous shiver traveled up Pixel’s spine, the kind of high petty theft and vandalism could at one point achieve but now became so routine only big risks would suffice. Their buck-toothed grin pained their face as it widened; if it were physically possible, surely their dimples would be touching the ceiling by now. 

Pixel smashed the buttons of their PDA with blinding speed. “Aaand sent,” he whispered, waving their hands around silently so as not to squeal and get their hard drives crashed.

“What’re you doing?” Byte whispered in response. “You aren’ taking pictures, are you? Your battery’s gonna run out!” They trembled, though a similar chill traveled through them as a voyeur might when seeing something they shouldn’t. Maybe there would be a pinup on the wall. Maybe the model was a man. Maybe he’d peeled his socks off on a particularly sweltering day and forgot them on the floor. Maybe–

“Nah, it’ll be fine, it’s still got like, half left,” Pixel estimated, though the battery symbol was obscured by a rather nasty line of black that threatened to overtake the entire screen with another drop. “Here, take this,” They said as they handed a small, sleek blue diamond gadget with no visible screens but several small buttons on each of its faces to Byte, who proceeded to suckle on one of the pointed ends.

“What’re you– hey ! That’s not a chew toy, you could get yourself killed!” Pixel rebuked.

“But the danger makes it tastier!” Byte protested.

“ Shut down ,” Pixel said, grabbing a silver device with geometric edges that fit into the palm of their hand.

“See anything else?” Byte said. “Socks?”

Pixel giggled and gave their companion’s fluffy hair a ruffle. “No, and no socks, my little weirdo,” they said, seeing some devices affixed to the walls that didn’t look easily removable and surprisingly, abstract art? They snapped a photo of them before that practically coked grin masked their face again.  “The smell would probably sear your eyebrows off.”

“I don’ need ‘em,” Byte snickered. “C’mon, les’ go before we get caught.”

“We won’t! And even if we do, my handy glitching can get us out of any pinch, as always, even if it’s about as reliable as a beater Cybercoupe,” Pixel said, sliding the small silver device down their black mesh tube top. “Now, it’s time to play.”

The inverted dome of the Wreaker began to open in the dark, the sound camouflaged by the perpetual humming of the machines within it. 

Pixel took two cans of black spray paint out from either pocket of their black chaps, one green stripe running down each of them. “C’mon. You know you wanna,” they tempted Byte. 

“You told me we’d jus’ be… foraging for supplies, not sprayin’ paint everywhere!”

“Well, change of plans. And be quiet!”

“Did’ya ever have a plan to start with?”

“Do I ever?” Pixel said, the cans rattling as he shook them in each fist. “Move, Byte.”

“No! It’s one thing if we need ta’ survive. It’s another thing to put us both at risk so you can have a lil’ fun!”

“Shh! Okay, Mr. Socks, you can play morality cop when we’re done, now move, you're wasting time.”

A metallic ramp gradually stretched from the opening of the dome.

“No! Don’ shush me, you're way louder!”

“ Frag off! You wanna go good? I’d like to see you try, arson and all.”

“They were abandoned buildings!”

“Normal people don’t want to burn stuff down regardless!” Pixel clasped Byte’s cheeks, shaking him with a frenzied grin in every sentence. “Face it Byte, you’re like me! You’re bad! You’re crazy! And that’s okay! We have to live this way, might as well have a little fun with it!”

“We don’ have to!”

The ramp touched the ground.

“Yes we do!”

“We can change, we can turn things around! We can have a normal life!”

“Not as long as that thing is after us, and that might be forever!”

Byte didn’t protest.

“What? Did I trigger you by mentioning him? Him. Ugh. Haskell. I’m tired of avoiding his name like he’s some evil wizard. Haskell! Haskell! Haskell!”

“Pixel…”

“No, shut down! You need to get over this! I’m over it!”

“Look…”

Reminiscent of a UFO, the only source of light aside from Pixel’s flashlight and the dim ambient bulbs in the hangar shone down from the opening of the Wreaker.

There stood a figure, top heavy, at least seven cyberfeet high and with a chest at least as wide of both of them combined. Its arms were bulky, and one hand was occupied; though vague in form, the object appeared to glow red intermittently. The figure slowly stepped down from the ramp of the Wreaker with its pointed leather boots; no need for haste when it raised its weapon in Byte and Pixel’s direction.

Pixel grabbed Byte’s free hand and bolted for the steel door, dropping the paint cans with a cacophonous clang. 

“Shirtless Dracula! Salt n’ pepper hair! Uh…uh…” Byte’s legs felt of jelly, their voice trembling.

Pixel, no longer under the pretension that willpower alone would help, tried to conjure up…titillating images, but their hard drive seemed as though it were wiped clean, the ticking of their H-drive pulsating throughout their entire body as they remembered that they weren’t alone.

“Byte, get behind me!” Pixel ordered, shoving them aside. “I’m not afraid a’ you, throw pillow! Bring it on!”

“Pixel, no!”

“Pixel, yes !” A new voice chimed, mocking the former’s falsetto with an ugly crack at the end. Illuminated by the pinhole of light from Pixel’s PDA, Hacker held the gun point blank at them. He snickered through a toothy grin before his face morphed into an austere grimace. “Put everything on the ground!” He yelled, his raucous voice echoing throughout the Hangar.

Byte’s blue gadget fell to the floor with a crash.

“I didn't say drop it, idiot!”

“Hey, look who's talking,” Pixel said, and with a colorful mosaic of squares and numbers their form dissolved and reintegrated in the shape of an elephant, brushing up against the Wreaker. The silver device they’d hidden in their shirt fell to the ground with a clang. The horrific trumpeting made Hacker shield his ears in agony, the weapon clattering to the ground.

Byte dove for it, but the larger man beat him to the punch, pushing them down onto the ground before re-aiming at Pixel.

“That warrants a beating, you boorish brat! Taste magnetite!”

Pixel chuckled, their voice distorted and deep. “Not if you want your Wreaker in one piece!” They began to push against it, metal creaking.

“PIXEL!” Byte screeched.

Before they could go any further, glowing red shards seared their form, releasing a maddening cross between a feminine shriek of agony and an elephant’s blaring cry. They shrunk until their humanoid body lay limp on the checkered tiles.

“ PIXEEEEL !” Byte blasted at the top of their lungs until it felt they were gargling razor blades. The Wreaker quaked and the few ambient lights in the hangar flickered. Hacker recoiled again, gnashing his teeth and scrunching up his features, but was wise enough to keep his fingers wrapped around the gun this time.

“AARGGH!” Hacker bellowed, pins stabbing his audio input drives. “You girls are so emotional ! Time to put you out of your misery!” His face, contorted in pain, twisted into a teeth-grinding grin as the ray gun whirred from a low to high frequency.

An acute denting, then piercing, of Hacker’s metallic exoskeleton sent white-hot shock waves through his neck, scraping paint from its surface and weeping a blue, viscous fluid. The pain exploded like a firework, starting on the surface and tearing tendrils underneath. He saw spots in his vision, fluid pricking his eyes as he released a hoarse mewl of agony. Worse yet was a slimy tendril running over the wound, taking its sweet time in prodding it, intensifying the pain with huffs of warm vapor.

By the time Hacker could process he’d been bitten, the younger borg had disarmed him.

Holding the foreign ray in their trembling hands, the device clearly too big for their small ones, Byte readied it at Hacker’s head but didn’t fire.

Hacker, now prone, snickered through the hellfire that blazed in his neck, the last bastion against vomiting, releasing a heaving sob, or both.

“Why, could you at least wine and dine me first?” He quipped, voice unsteady. 

“ You taste as good as you look ,” Byte whispered with a low creep of a laugh before heaving labored breaths. Their irises were now the size of pin pricks, blue-stained smile pulled thin and coy. “ If only your attitude matched .” The deranged fusion of resentment and perverse glee contrasted starkly with the bow at their chest and the ruffles at their cuffs, resembling a magical princess protagonist gone mad.

“Disgusting,” Hacker gave a weak chuckle.

Byte fiddled with the unfamiliar layout of the gun, no trigger or button or anything of the sort to be found.

“You have no idea what you're doing, do you, sweetheart?”

“Shut down!” Byte snapped with a growl like a wolf pup, stained teeth grinding.

“Have some species confusion like your friend too, do you? Why don't I HELP?” Hacker used his pain as a cathartic trigger, charging for Byte with all he had. 

Byte tried to sink their teeth into him, but Hacker proactively smacked their face to turn their head away, dropping the ray.

Hacker sunk one shot into Byte, their body falling to the ground without so much as a cry. He winced as he turned around to survey the damage. Fortunately, his personal effects went unharmed, with not so much as a dent in his ship.

“B-b-b-baws!? Are you okay?” Delete hollered through the opening of the Wreaker, the beginnings of tears warbling his words. “Was that an elephant ?”

“We gotta get you to a mechanic!” Buzz shouted with uncharacteristic passion.

A slow leak of a wheeze came from the older man, his henchmen’s eyes scrunching in visceral concern. A bitter chuckle followed suit, lowering the bots’ guard for a moment. “Merely a flesh wound, my maladroit melonheads,” Hacker rumbled, gripping the back of his weeping neck and turning to face them. 

Buzz and Delete gave one another a look of relief, though puzzlement still prevailed in their expressions.

Hacker stepped towards them gingerly, careful not to let the vicious aching show in his face. “Yes…worry not, for The Hacker always turns obstacles into opportunities, challenges into chicanery, and most of all, brats into bridled bots !” He guffawed hoarsely, gasping for air between unhinged peals of laughter. 

Chapter Text

A blurry purple came into view, and a sticky, coarse dryness ravaged Byte’s mouth. They swallowed, but it was no balm to the sandpaper texture of their tongue. A stone-hard coolness froze their exposed skin, weakness seizing their joints. The blur began to resemble a ceiling, then barred windows revealing the deep emerald of Cyberspace when they finally tilted their pounding head.

Byte heaved their torso up from the floor despite every circuit in their body practically begging to be put back down, dull pain afflicting them everywhere. The gloomy purple walls engraved with intricate swirls had devices affixed to them on one end that appeared to be shackles or clamps of sorts. 

On the other end a hard “bed” jutted from the wall that looked no softer than metal, with the exception of a purple and green gingham pillow. A purple door with a barred opening and no knob imposed on the far end of the room, a mint green mat below it. It struck Byte as out of place for such a sterile room, but their analysis was broken by a creaking groan. Their head whipped to the wall opposite of the door, where Pixel lay balled in the fetal position.

“Pixel!” Byte hobbled on shaky legs to meet the other, who was exhaling pained whines, their twintails scraggly with oil-coated hair draping over their face. “Cheese n’ rice! ‘re you okay?”

They said nothing, simply shaking their weary head from left to right and back again with a groan. 

“Good moooooorning, sunshines!” A saccharine coated baritone echoed down the hall, sickly sweet like a curious child’s first sips of antifreeze. “I thought a couple of lazy thieves like you would sleep into the afternoon. What a pleasant surprise to hear you awake bright and early. Not! ”

“Hacker!” Byte croaked, their throat sore and unquenched.

“That’s The Hacker to you, you broccoli-headed cybersneak,” he snapped as he poked his nose through the bars of the door. “You’re especially on thin ice, Bitey Byte . Don’t think you’re getting off easy for mutilating my noble nape!” He lowered the collar from his cloak to show a white patch of gauze at the site.

“Noble my tail!”

Hacker growled. “You’re overdue for an attitude adjustment. But for now, I’m more interested in Pixie. I wasn’t sure if a borg could survive an elephant-tranquilizing dose of magnetite!” He chortled in inquisitive delight at his discovery.

“What...did you just call me,” Pixel rasped, lifting their heavy head from the chill tile.

“Did the magnetite deafen you, Pixie ? Or do you prefer… Anarchia? ” Hacker gave a lilt to the name that practically drew flourishes of feminine calligraphy in the air. Byte’s eyes and mouth gaped in an instant, bracing themself with their arms. “Careful, Bitey, you’ll catch flies. Ah, who am I kidding, you’re probably trying to get breakfast!” He chuckled through his teeth.

A flash of hot and cold sent shivers up Pixel’s spine and made their H-drive pound, their fingers clenching into hard balls. They used their fight-or-flight response as a catapult to explode to their feet like a pinned wrestler, lurching toward the door on their skates even as their sore circuits silently screamed in protest.

“Oh, she’s up and walking already? Maybe the dose wasn’t big enough after all,” The large man commented. 

Pixel teleported to the door’s opening in a flurry of distorted polygons, looking up at Hacker. Irritation sizzled in their weary eyes, threatening to boil over at any moment.

“That’s a fun little party trick, Anarchia,” Hacker teased. “Get too cocky and I’ll give you a double dose next time.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name, Hieronymous ,” Pixel said in a low, trembling rumble, their entire body precariously upright like a game of wooden blocks. 

“How cute that you think I’m as wounded by my given name as you are. You don’t know her? Not an Anarchia Reignbow Pixel, age 27 cyberyears, programmed sex female, email and IP address [email protected] and 42.189.124.221 respectively?” Hacker replied. 

“No-o-ope,” Pixel stuttered, flickering in and out of existence in clusters of colorful rectangles and squares. Their H-drive ticked in their ears and made their tube top quake ever so slightly under its vibrations.

“N-n-n-no? You have a babyface for 27, but you are looking a bit long in the tooth ,” Hacker teased with a chuckle, pulling his bottom lip inward to bare his incisors. “I don’t appreciate having photos of my residence posted on forums either, 31337reignbot,” Hacker scoffed. “There’s nothing ELEET about you, not even hiding your identity behind a proxy, you little script kiddie. That you haven’t been exposed for all of the nasty things you’ve said about me and other cybercitizens is a miracle.”

“Because all you have are nice things to say about people,” Pixel said, voice wavering. 

“I couldn’t care less about your cowardly keyboard criticism, An~ar~chi~a ,” The older man said, giving extra obnoxious vocal ornamentation to the name. “You’ve invaded my residence, shared private images, attempted theft, and attempted to destroy my property. And your little friend Boney here attempted murder.”

“‘Twas self-defense!” Byte squeaked. "And it's pronounced Bonnie!"

“What self-defense class did you take that involved licking at wounds like a lecherous lunatic? Sign me up, baby,” Hacker quipped. “Anyway, egregious crimes such as these would normally warrant a permanent crash of your hard drives, but you two happen to be extraordinarily lucky. Indentured servitude it is! Congratulations!”

“You aren’t a-a-a-a cop! This is unla-a-awful imprisonme-e-ent!” Pixel barked, their form distorting, rectangular slices of their body falling in and out of place.

“C-c-correct! I’m an evil, power-hungry supergenius, not some trigger-happy lowlife grasping for authority through a career in ‘ law enforcement. ’” Hacker replied. “The Northern Frontier has no governing body and only five–formerly three–residents! I am the law–no–I am the anti-law! What I say goes and is subject to change, fabrication, and contradiction!” 

“I’ll get you arrested,” Pixel said, wrenching their cracked PDA from their pocket. 

“You must really have conked your head on the floor earlier,” Hacker started. “The Northern Frontier is under no authority. The authorities do not take calls from anyone attempting to prosecute me, let alone any of my calls for help since my banishment. That is handled by Motherboard’s Earth brats, though I’d expect a cyberstalker such as yourself to know that and more by now.”

“Frag , he’s right,” Pixel cursed. “He’s only ever gotten locked up in Sensible Flats when he got accused of breakin’ a property law on their soil.”

“Good girl, using that noodle of yours! Watch your language, though. It’s most unbecoming of a lady.”

“I am no-o-ot a la-a-dy!” Pixel squeaked in a humiliating voice crack, flickering. “I’m a boy!” 

“Me too!” Byte interjected.

Hacker wheezed, then erupted in a raucous guffaw, echoing down the hall and the walls of the dungeon. “And I’m the reincarnated King Henry VIII! I must say, your bikinis are quite studly, boys!” He howled like a banshee with his head tipped back, barely able to finish his sentences without choking on laughter. “Will you teach me how to braid my hair?”

Condensation formed on Pixel’s palms as the single spotlight in the dungeon shone down on him. Years of parasocial trolling and Hacker was no more debased by Pixel’s insults than before, yet Hacker made Pixel’s cheeks flare simply by saying his given name aloud. It was as if The Hacker, who had no incentive to conform to politically correct society, was Cyberspace’s collective mouthpiece saying all that everyone was too polite to. He was right; saying his given name would never wound him in the same way because ego–not deception–was the intention in changing it. 

“If you grew some, I would,” Pixel jeered with the paper-thin confidence of a child muttering under their breath at a parent. 

“How clever,” Hacker said. “Reaching high for that fruit, I see.”

“Now, if you would, please, zip your traps and listen.” The supervillain cleared his throat. “You will be my indentured servants for eternity or until you’re no longer useful to me, whichever comes first,” he began.

“The rules of common borg decency no longer apply to you since you’re my property. If you attempt to usurp, harm, or escape me, I will not hesitate to crash your hard drives permanently, either immediately or after a lengthy period of torture, depending on what I’m in the mood for,” he said almost exasperatedly, as if this were the thousandth recitation of the spiel.

“Got it?” He bared his massive chompers in a smug grin.

“...eternity?” Byte whimpered, a forming lump making the stabbing pain in his throat even more raw.

“Don’t worry, Byte,” Pixel said with a glare at Hacker. “I’m not afraid of some low-res scumbag who’s regularly foiled by elementary school-aged fleshpigs . We’ll be out of here in no time.” 

Hacker chuckled through his lips. “There’s a little hole in your theory, princess . You see, we’re all about to become a lot closer. I’d say we’re a team, but we’re more like family .”

“You’re no family a’ mine, you big green meanie!” Byte choked out, desperately holding back the floodgates clouding his golden eyes with a furrowed brow.

“The greenest and the meanest,” Hacker said with a self-satisfied flash of his pearly whites. “To receive the Cyber Dad of The Year Award which will allow me to rule all of Cyberspace, I will need the two of you to play the role of my adoring, perfect children.”

“Yeah, ‘cause everybody’s going to believe that the Hacker has two estranged kiddies that look nothin’ like him,” Pixel snapped.

“Plus, we’re grown-ups,” Byte added, though his childlike cadence hardly sold his point. “Where were you when we were kids, then?”

“Zip it!” Hacker scolded. “Why does the theater prize neotenous adults? They can play the role without those pesky child labor laws limiting their hours. For this role, you’ll be…oh, fifteen. The story will be that I adopted you both, preferably in a saccharine rescue that made my heart grow three times larger, resolving to change my ways from evil to good.”

“That’s a funny joke,” Byte said. “You’re a bad apple with a greasy green peel. Nobody’s gonna believe you.”

“Once a bad guy, always a bad guy,” Pixel tacked on. 

“You underestimate my charisma and overestimate the intellect of the average cyberpeon–let’s not forget when I nearly won an election, shall we?” Hacker said. “As for you two, I hope you’ve got some acting experience. If not, start practicing–your drive depends on it!” He gave a sardonic laugh, staccato and piercing as it hit the air. 

“This plan doesn’t even make any sense !” Pixel protested. “Who cares about some underclocked Father’s Day award?”

“ Language , Pixie!” Hacker scolded. “It would be a waste of my precious time to explain Machiavellian mastery to someone who can’t even use a burner email,” the supervillain gloated. “I’ve got an emergency spa appointment today to rejuvenate after taking your abuse. Take this morning to rest–you're welcome. Then we’re off to R-Fair City.”

The two borgs’ tails quirked up at the proposal, gently swaying. They looked at one another with eyes sparkling and the hint of a smile blooming.

“Don’t get your hopes up, now,” Hacker spat. “It’ll be a show of our fabricated familial closeness, not a playdate.” 

Byte and Pixel wilted back down.

“I’ve got cameras, so if I see any funny business, it’s a double dose of magnetite for the both of you. Don’t press your luck when you barely survived the first. Ta-ta!” He twiddled his fingers in a wave. The heels of Hacker’s boots clacked against the hard tile floor, fading as he shut another door behind him with a slam that the younger borgs felt quake in their feet.

“ Golly gee , he’s not playin’ with a full list a’ programs, is he, Pix?” Byte remarked.

“No kiddin,” Pixel groaned, hiding his face in his hands. “We ran straight from one corruptopath into the arms of another. My everything fraggin’ hurts,” he complained, attempting to find comfort in the inhospitable amenity that just barely met the definition of a “bed.”

“Mine too,” Byte whined, then smiled just a tad. “Hey, maybe it’ll be kinda fun playin’ house with mean old Hacker for a while. Maybe he’ll let us ride the rides, n’ then the Earthlies will come and save us!”

“Can you do me a solid and just stop talkin’? My head is pounding and stupidity only makes it worse,” Pixel snapped. 

Byte’s faint twinkle faded, finding a spot for himself on the cold tile as the dam he’d put over his eyes finally burst. He trembled as tears dripped down his nose and made domed drops on the floor, the room silent save for the constant humming of the Wreaker’s mechanisms and his sniffling.

The bed creaked as weight shifted on it, then a soft impact hit against the floor. “Aw, jeez,” Pixel complained, wheels clicking against the grout between the tiles. 

Byte felt his head being gently lifted to land on a pillow. A thin arm snaked around him, then a leg, then a nose buried into his shoulder blades. To Byte’s surprise, the body trembled just as much as his did.

“You know I didn’t mean it,” Pixel whispered, voice quavering. “Let’s have fun playing house…okay?” A soft smack of lips against Byte’s cheek acted as a balm to the harrowing shadow of anxiety overtaking him.

“Plus, won’t it be fun to just let go and act like kids for a little bit? We can cause as much trouble as we want and we won't be blamed for it!” Byte gushed, sniffing up the last of his tears.

The hint of a grin swelled on Pixel’s face, then that familiar rat-like smile beamed in all of its crooked glory, making the threat of tears inert. “Yeah…” Mischief glittered in his eyes scrunched up by glowing cheeks. “He’s gotta act nice and sweet too, so even if we get on his nerves, he can’t do a thing but play dad! We can embarrass him as much as we want!”

“Yes! Then maybe he’ll give up and use all his power to make me the cutest, most popular idol in all of Cyberspace!” Byte squealed, pressing gloved hands up to his face in excitement. “ And then he’ll let me keep his old socks ,” He whispered, a demented glimmer painted over his eyes.

Pixel’s delinquent snickering stopped in its tracks and he gave his companion a petrified, vacant stone stare. “This is why I gotta look out for you, you know that?”

Peals of laughter escaped Byte’s fanged mouth, rapid and popping in the air like Cyberburpie bubbles. “It’s worth a try!”

The other opened his mouth to speak, but to ruin that smile at a time like this would have put Pixel in the same league as Hacker. “Yeah, yeah, just don’t get too excited. No psychic stuff, file closed .”

Byte pouted. “But knowing what Hacker’s feeling would make things so much easier!”

“I don’t care. Not after last time. Knowing him, his headspace is probably chaotic enough to cause a total systems overload,” Pixel tersely warned with a steely gaze. “Maybe even a permanent shutdown .”

“Fine, I can win him over without it,” Byte huffed, then giggled. He still trembled, but with the bouncing pep of a sugar rush instead of despair. The faded voice of his father scolded him for not having the appropriate response of fear in such a situation, but the possibilities were just too fun to run away with in fantasy.

Pixel followed suit, the danger of their predicament overshadowed by a naughty pounding of his H-drive. He pictured humiliating Hacker in front of all of Cyberspace and uncovering his secrets. The imagined schadenfreude as Hacker met defeat at the hands of dumb human children made his mouth water–delicious!

The chill tile eased the tension in Pixel’s aching limbs. He stiffened, rebelling against the familiar comfort of a cage. Even if it were the last place in Cyberspace their pursuer would imagine to look, those careful eyes followed him everywhere, even alone, even in his dreams. He could almost feel the phantom of rusty shackles around his ankles imagining what may happen if Hacker decided that even the limited freedom of the dungeon was too much, if he pawned them off to their previous captor when he was finished.

Byte lay silently on the ground, twisted fantasies of green supervillains and the warmth of his companion lulling him to hibernation. Pixel refused Hacker’s offer of rest, instead etching the memory of burning shame and the pulse of pain into his mind to ignite a fire within himself for the coming day.

Chapter Text

“Sam Vander Rom here, and this is Hard Drive–the show that tells it like it is, whether you like it or not,” The yellow polygonal bespeckled cyborg said to the camera with the sensational cadence of a seasoned reporter. “Today I’m joined by my intrepid partner Erica Ram in R-Fair City to deliver a special report.” 

They spoke against the backdrop of rollercoasters whooshing across tracks like waves crashing onto the shore and swaths of game booths with marquees lined in lights, an exhilarated scream occasionally tearing through the atmosphere. 

“That’s right, Sam. We’ve gotten word that Cyberspace may have two very special children to thank for its newfound peace. I’m here with Hacker, who rescued the young boys after they were abandoned and left to perish in the Northern Frontier,” she piped up in her falsetto.

The aforementioned man dressed in a frumpy pink polo shirt tucked into tan cargo shorts with white sneakers and crew socks, hairy shins and forearms peeking out. On his head sat a baseball cap with the words “GO SPORTS” in a college font. His crooked grin, hands clasped in front of himself and the bandana wrapped around his wounded neck created an uncanny contrast that left the imps swaying between nausea and the urge to belly laugh. 

“The Hacker, you–” the villain grumbled before snapping to a placid form at the camera staring him down. Hacker swiped the microphone from Erica’s hand, feigning a fainting gesture with the other. “Oh, how cruel could someone be to leave their loved ones in such a cold, desolate, lonely place? I not only opened up my home, but my heart to these boys. For the first time, I realized that there are things worth protecting in this world–” he sniffed as he choked on the words. “I’m sorry, I’m okay,” he mewled, wiping his eyes with his fingers before taking a resolute stance. “I vow to never bring chaos to Cyberspace ever again–not only for the future of my children, but for the good of all Cybercitizens’ posterity!”

Erica fumbled the mic from Hacker’s hands, feedback squealing. “That’s so heartwarming! But, uh, please let me hold the microphone,” she stumbled.

“Is that so, Hacker?” Sam interjected, his jaw hinged by bolts clamping shut. “One month on vacation, and you’re calling it quits? No more chaos? Do you really promise to abandon your years-long aspirations to dominate Cyberspace for the welfare of your children?”

“Is there an echo in here?” Hacker growled before stammering. “I-I mean, of course! My tiny tykes can attest to our love! Isn’t that right, boys?”

Byte and Pixel wore clothes so juvenile that to call them 15 year olds would be reaching, chafing around the hips despite the outfits Hacker had picked fitting in other regards. The snug fit only added insult to injury, the two of them still feeling like they’d been hit by a bus. “I’ll let you play boys so long as you don’t dress like two-snelfu tramps,” Hacker’s words bounced in Pixel’s head like pinballs, aggravated by his academy-award winning sniveling. They hit nerves as they ricocheted, making his cheeks flare. He feared he’d need a cryoxide transfusion if Hacker didn’t shut up, already blistering under the oppressive heat in his green “cuddle monster” hoodie. Byte made himself look even smaller as he slouched in a purple dinosaur T-shirt, perking his pointed ears for derisive laughs and peeking over his shoulder for leering eyes. 

Byte froze as all eyes landed on the pair, the red recording light beaming with the intensity of Hacker’s magnetite ray. “Is this…going to be on TV?” Byte muttered to Pixel, a cold tingle of static flashing through his body. “...Site-wide?”

“Try cyberwide prime time,” Pixel panicked, doubling as an answer. He pulled his hood up and the strings taut so that only his button nose stuck out from the hole. Byte similarly pulled his purple dinosaur shirt over his head, showcasing his belly button.

“You’ll have to excuse us, they’re quite shy after enduring such trauma,” Hacker purred, though he spat the last word with thinly veiled gravel. He corralled the imps just out of earshot and huddled, ripping Byte and Pixel’s makeshift masks away from their faces. Erica cooed in sympathy and Sam attempted to buy time with idle chatter.

“What are you doing, idiots!?” He snarled through his teeth, gripping his fingers into their shoulders with painful tenacity as they flinched. “Speak!”

“We can’t! We can’t be on TV or else somebody bad is gonna find us and hurt us!” Byte squawked.

“Yeah! He’s gonna know where we are and hunt us down and put us in cages!” Pixel spit rapid-fire, his voice and body quavering. “That’s why we started stealin’ ‘cause we ran away and can’t stay in one place and if we can’t stay in one place we can’t have jobs and if we can’t have jobs we can’t have money andifwedon’thavemoneywecan’t–”

A feeling of pressure interrupted their ramblings, coupled with their bodies being turned to face the opposite direction. An elegant, smoky aroma laced with pepper, musk and a tinge of spice in tandem with the warmth made the imps’ H-drives forget to click for a few moments. Byte shuddered, electric impulses accessing memories of his father still alive, a masculine scent enveloping him when he’d be sheltered by firm arms. For Pixel, it filled a gap that he hadn’t known existed, a silent answer to a question he’d never asked, this foreign scent and touch flooding his sensors and writing new code with a whir and jitter of his hard drive. 

The same fingers that had but a moment ago ensnared them in brambles now cradled the two in its secure grasp and a measure of compassion that made the two do a double take; this was indeed the same man that had pumped them with a lethal helping of magnetite the night before.

Hacker shot the two a sober look, careful to project his voice for the camera.

“I will never, ever, let anyone hurt you.”

The words jarred the spiral forming in the imps’ minds in an instant. It couldn’t be true, the way it was presented was so obviously played up for the sensationalism of it all. Pixel cursed the burst of stillness in his mind, attempting to shatter it to resist Hacker’s artifice. Take your jammin’  Gollywood act and shove it, he thought, despite the flawless sincerity the man had managed to beguile him with. 

Byte had gone completely limp, his eyes hazed over with a vacancy that told Pixel he was alive, but his mind was far, far away from here. For a moment he’d looked so full, then completely empty. Hacker had taken him back to his father stuck in the past, making those same unfulfilled promises of protection. He glanced at the permanently sunset orange sky for a sign that his papito still shone down on him, and the clouds simply drifted in indifference, no guardian angels up high for salvation.

“What?!” Delete shrieked in his almost pubescent modulation at the dinky television in the control room of the Wreaker, throwing a stuffed pink rabbit at the screen. “It ain’t fair! We deserve a day at the carnival afta all we’ve done for the baws!”

Buzz viciously mauled several donuts at once, crumbs flying like viscera. “Yeh!” He barked, mouth stuffed to the brim. “HHhNGRk,” he sputtered.

“Buzzy, swallow!”

Buzz obliged, a painful ball of dough sliding down his gullet. “So much for ‘We’re going out for milk, duncebuckets!’” He imitated in his best Hacker voice. “Afta all ‘doze sleepless nights, all ‘doze bottles I warmed, and aaaawll ‘doze stains I got outta ‘doze pajamas, dis is da thanks I get?!" He growled, throwing his fists down.

“Uh, what was that second thing, Buzz?” 

“‘Doze brats dunno the first thing about hard work!” Buzz continued. “Why’s he takin’ ‘em on a field trip?!"

“‘Cause he wants ta’ get rid of us afta we couldn’t be his kids! And now he’s gonna kick us to the curb as soon as he can!” Delete squeaked, his furrowed brow quirking in concern.

“Not if I have anytin’ to say about it!” Buzz said, standing upon an empty box of donuts. “Now are you wit’ me or not?”

“Yeh! We’ll make ‘em pay!” Delete threatened. “Workas of the world unite! Fight the ock-you-pay-shun!” He howled, voice cracking, his fists hammering the air.

“I need a shower after brushing up with you two unwashed runts,” Hacker shuddered after the segment had ended, the camera crew far out of sight. “Eugh!” He took out wet wipes from the yellow fanny pack around his waist and practically bathed his face and forearms in them.

“Love you too, pops,” Pixel said, the feeling of walking as opposed to skating along the concrete near torturous in its sluggishness. At the very least it let him favor one leg over the other, his right ankle particularly sore from the fall.

“Aw, how sweet of you to say you love me, son! I must be the luckiest dad in the whole Cyberuniverse!” Hacker nearly yelled, strained grin growing wider as he caught glares from onlookers.

“You’re not my dad!” Byte finally said, the light returning to his eyes in a blaze of rebellion. A few eyes followed them, but this time he reveled in the attention instead of hiding away.

Record scratch. Hacker still smiled, but he ground his teeth and an eye twitched. “Not by creation, no! But I am your father by law, and surely, in your heart as well,” he said with the authority of a command, not a suggestion.

“Make me!” He crossed his arms with a poke of his tongue through pointed canines.

Hacker yanked Byte aside into a nook between the cotton candy and hot dog booths, the latter cringing as the man’s thick green hooks clenched his wrist.

Hacker poked his monumental chin in the imp’s face, eliciting a flinch. “I don’t know what you’re thinking blabbering your tin-witted piehole out of turn like a nasty little brat,” he said in a mangled growl, stabbing an accusatory finger into Byte’s collarbone for emphasis. “But if it happens again, so help me I will strike your tail end with my belt until it’s glowing red.”

Byte’s eyes quirked and his tail swayed, biting his lip in restraint before letting it slack with a smirk. “You pwomise?” 

Hacker’s face fell, eyes widening for just a delectable earned moment before darkening again. “I don’t need to know how you get your jollies! Just zip it if you know what's good for you!” He released Byte with a push, making him stumble before catching himself on his already aching feet. It stung where Hacker had jostled him, but the younger borg could hardly stop the schoolboy grin making his cheeks swell. 

Lightbulb.

“What happened?” Pixel said with concern twisting his features before showing his best Mom Glare in response to the other’s giddiness. “What happened.”

“Pix, I hav’ an idea, but you’ve jus’ gotta trust me,” the curly haired borg said, his face tinged red as his lips quivered in trying to suppress himself.

“I don’t and I won’t,” Pixel said.

Byte cupped a hand over Pixel’s pointed ear and whispered his watertight plan.

Pixel grimaced. “Crash your drive.”

“Guess I’ll jus’ enjoy Hacker’s pathetic faces myself, then,” Byte said with an exaggerated slump. “Was super funny, though…”

“You saw it?”

“Oh yea. An’ for that split second, I saw him inside and out and I felt like god, seein’ something nobody else could see. No psychic stuff involved!”

Pixel’s head still ached in a dull throb that made his eyes feel as hard as cue balls, the stifling heat under fleece not at all helping. More than that, though, stung the shrewd remarks that Hacker used to expose his incompetence. Even if he’d gotten sloppy, there was one skill that every internet troll worth their salt possessed: the ability to break through people’s facades, expose the soft meat underneath, and devour. The forums had already given him the tools, though Hacker claimed they harmed him none. Had there been a particularly prescient or cutting comment that wounded him, yet he didn’t show it at the moment?

Only one way to find out.

Pixel smirked at the dome-headed clowns towering high above them, the simple geometric shapes of their torsos tethered to long cords that they used to float around on like a single stilt. He’d remembered why he’d never been entertained by them—It’s only fun to laugh at someone who doesn’t want you to. “You know just how to speak my language, Boni boy.” 

Byte and Pixel took either one of Hacker’s arms and interlinked them with one of each of their own, saddled side-by-side with the man. Byte cringed a tad, but acquiesced fairly quickly to the man’s bulk.

Pixel hesitated at first, the dense jungle of hair along Hacker’s forearm and backside of his hand making him feel like a lost explorer in uncharted territory. The unfamiliar cologne made his mind hazy—surely a pheromone from a carnivorous plant waiting to siphon his nutrients. He attempted to map the foreign terrain with his small fingers, but the prickle and tickle of the fuzz made him release a soft, humiliating eep!

“What in damnation do you think you’re doing?” Hacker said. “Just after I’ve wiped myself clean of your sticky mitts, too. Lovely.”

“I-I’m just linking up with my old man, what’s the problem?” Pixel said, startled by the other.

“Yeah, Father of the Year, we’re jus’ showing our daddy some affection,” Byte said in a sugary treacle. 

“I can accomplish my goals without canoodling with cheap minxes, thank you,” Hacker said as he slipped his burly arms out of their clutches.

“You’ll never win Father of the Year if you treat your kids like spam at the bottom of your inbox,” Pixel said. 

“There are a lotta dads out there…and you’ve got more to prove than anybody,” Byte said.

“People eat this family scrap up. I thought Erica Ram was going to ovulate when you hugged us. Or…whatever her kinda borg does.”

“Thank you for that mental image,” Hacker said, his upper lip curling.

“Point is,” Byte interjected. “You got big shoes to fill, mister. So you gotta go all out if you wanna win.”

Hacker yanked the two back into his arms, though his grasp was much more certain and stiff. “I don’t know what your angle is, but if you think you’re getting brownie points for your little tidbits, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Jeez, you’re acting like you ain’t never touched a guurrrlll before,” Pixel said.

“Maybe he hasn’, maybe he’s…a virgin,” Byte not-so-quietly whispered. “Are you?”

“I am under no obligation to dignify your childish interrogation with a response,” Hacker said.

“That means yes,” Pixel said.

“I am a mastermind, not some hormone-addled pubescent Earth brat,” the older man said. “Primitive concepts such as ‘virginity’ are but trivialities to a superior machine such as myself.”

“So you weren’t created with anything down there,” Pixel guessed.

“What audacity you possess to continue this sordid line of questioning when I hold your pathetic life in my hands.”

“So you probably were, but it’s teeny-tiny,” Byte added.

Hacker stiffened, stopping their stride and releasing himself once more. “Only a drooling idiot, or worse, a human enslaved to impulses of the flesh, fixates upon these things! Your attempts to insult me only highlight your inferior intellect, you worthless scraps of corrupted data!” He pointed at them, the imps swearing he’d tinged just a shade darker green. “Now adjust your tone for your future king, insects!” He said the last sentence in a near-yell, forgetting all attempts to hush the conversation.

“Wanting to get to know my dad better is a crime now, got it,” Pixel said.

Eyes stuck to him like flypaper, the disapproving brow of mother and father Poddles and flinches of nearby R-Cadians informing him that this behavior was likely not tolerated from the Father of the Year.

Hacker shrunk, grumbling. “I’m ssss…ssorry,” he hissed, the apology choking up his throat like bile. “I…shouldn’t have raised my voice,” he said mechanically as if he had read it from a script, and the stares dissipated.

Pixel and Byte cheesed silently in the triumph and mischief that children exchange when they’ve successfully broken a teacher.

“Ugh, I hate Father’s Day shopping,” Jackie complained, the Earthlies in tow as they strolled through a crowded mall. “What do you even get a guy that ‘doesn’t want anything’? What if I get him something and he hates it? What if I don’t get him something and he thinks I don’t care? What if–”

“Jax, I’m gonna need you to take a pill,” Matt said.

“What, for dealing with you?”

“Funny,” he droned. “We’re gonna help you find a gift for your dad, and he’s gonna love it, whether he likes it or not.”

“That’s kind of an oxymoron, Matt,” Inez said. “If he loves it, then the implication is that he likes it as well. It’s not possible to not like loving something.”

“You’ve clearly never been a farm kid in a public school,” Matt replied. “And don’t call me names.”

“Oxymoron, Matt. A contradiction. Though, I suppose one could be ambivalent about something.”

“What does my writing hand have to do with it?”

“Guys, this is so totally not helping!” Jackie squeaked.

“Whatever,” Matt said. “Let’s try Grill Guru. Maybe we can find him some cool barbecue accessories!”

“Wait, let’s go to all of the stores in order,” Jackie said. “I don’t want to miss anything.” The other two groaned.

The sound of an electric pop and static jolted the three from their conversation.

“Cybermates! Over here!”

The kids’ heads whipped around, searching before focusing on a television and game console on display in a video game store window.

“Mother B! Motherboard!” The three said in almost-unison, had Inez not preferred to keep things formal.

“What’s wrong?” Matt said.

“Hacker…children.” Motherboard said, the screen tearing with flashes of static intermittently. 

“Hacker children? Hacker is hurting children? Unless…what if it’s like that movie we had to watch at school? Ew, ew, and double ew!” Jackie breathed, her eyes as wide as dinner plates contemplating horrific possibilities.

“Hacker has adopted children, Jackie. Pull yourself together.” Motherboard continued, a rare undertone of impatience in her expression. “He should not be able to adopt. I fear the children are in trouble. I need you to get to the bottom of this, cybermates.”

Inez gasped. “There’s no way Hacker adopted legitimately! I have adopted cousins, and the process was very rigorous!”

“As is the case in Cyberspace,” Motherboard said. 

“Don’t worry, Mother B. We’ll save those kids from Hacker and give them to a loving family,” Matt said.

A pink, oval-shaped portal ripped through the atmosphere, glitter swirling on the perimeter.

“At least I won’t have to think about what kind of tongs to get my dad for a while,” Jackie said with a chuckle.

“Jackie!” The three others said together, the Cybersquad’s bodies warping as the portal sucked them into the vortex.

Chapter Text

“‘Midway’ is right. This place is a dump,” Hacker said as he passed an overflowing trash can. He glanced at a young radster eating pink cotton candy on a stick, the floss sliding slowly until it fell to the ground near its single-wheeled skateboard unipedal appendage. Their face contorted in despair and a wail began to leak from their lips. Hacker smirked. “Though there are some redeeming qualities.”

“I’m sick of walkin’ around. I wanna ride the Hurlinator 3000!” Pixel said, his eyes sparkling even as his foot pain dragged him behind the other two. A red rollercoaster towered over the other rides in extreme dips and curls, flames glowing in lights embellishing the barely-legible death metal font on the signage and the carts. Screeching guitars and guttural throat singing blared from speakers near the relatively short queue, the few patrons in it quaking and pulling at their faces with wide-eyed derangement.

“You will do no such thing,” Hacker said. “I will not have my ticket to rule over Cyberspace, and especially not myself, crushed under a rickety scrap heap.”

“Aww, you do care,” Byte teased with a poke to Hacker’s bicep that the latter swatted away.

“Wait,” Pixel said with a snort. “You aren’t scared, are you?”

“Scared? I’m rightfully cautious. Look at the welding on that thing! Unlike these thrill-addicted hicks, I don’t have a death wish, thank you.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Pixel said. “Everyone who rides it gets a trophy to commemorate their bravery.”

“Trophy?” Hacker’s eyes lit up at the possibility, then he grimaced. “Cheap plastic, I’m sure.”

“No, it’s the real deal! See how short that line is? Only a few people have what it takes to ride the Hurlinator. There’s a whole hall of fame for everyone who survives this ride. Your name will be remembered throughout all of Cyberspace, right along with Spudsy McGee and Chip Tallywhacker.”

“I’ve never heard of those people,” Hacker said.

Byte flashed a look of condescension at Hacker. “Never heard a’ Spudsy. You really are living under a rock.” Pixel shook his head in disbelief.

Pixel sighed. “I mean, if you don’t wanna be held up as a paragon of courage and prove yourself hardier than the rest of us dunces, that’s fine–”

“Get the lead out, kiddies!” Hacker shouted, sprinting through the queue, pushing away several shaken borgs who protested little at his rudeness. “Three for the Hurlinator 3000, please!”

The apathetic dome-headed female R-Cadian squished the trio into the shoddy cart, vague substances coating the seats, paint peeling all over, and what looked like nail scratch marks in the metal bar in their laps. The three packed together like sardines with the biggest bloated fish in the middle, the imps’ faces full of the man’s polo-covered moobs. Hacker grinned like a madman, wriggling himself into a more comfortable position as the ride made its several hundred Cyberfeet ascent. He monologued of his masculine virtue all the way, not noticing the way the park looked like a mere diorama as the ride paused at its peak. 

The carts squealed in agony, sparks flying as it reached the threshold where they’d started, the vehicle braking with a violent jerk that sent a borg from a car further back flying into the tracks like a ragdoll. Hacker, now completely bald, sat stiff, eyes and mouth gaping in shell-shocked catatonia. His nose and jowls seemed permanently warped upwards by the sheer astronomical G-force of the vehicle. Pixel rested his empty face in his hand, elbow placed on the lap bar as he dinked with his PDA in search of stimulation. Byte yawned and let his head go limp, eyes fluttering shut with a slight contented smile.

The lap bar flew open with a hiss, steam billowing from the underside of the cart. Hacker sat as a statue, the life drained from his eyes.

“Oh Hackiepoo! You made it!” A familiar voice shrieked as he felt spindly arms wrap around him.

“Wicked?!” Hacker exclaimed, peeling her off of him. “Get off of me, you wench!” 

“Darling, why?” she cooed, pulling him out of the cart. “I saw you on the Hurlinator and I want you back, baby! You’re a real man now!” 

“As if I would ever go back to a two-timing treacherous tramp like yourself!” Hacker said, straightening out his nose like a pipe cleaner. “Where are those brats?”

“Oh, who cares? I take it all back!” She took his chin into her slender fingers, her voice lowering to a sultry growl. “I submit to you completely, big daddy.”

 “Wha-huh?!” Hacker flinched, one eye widening and the other scrunching up in a grimace. He pushed her away. “Enough of this nonsense at once!” He pushed his way back to the adjoining exit and gift shop. “Young R-Cadian! I believe I am owed a trophy for my fearless conquest of the Hurlinator Thrrree-Thousand ,” he said with a roll of his R’s, showing off his pearly whites in a smug grin.

The dead-eyed young woman from before squinted at him. “What?”
“Did I stutter?” He said, putting on airs with a posh lilt in his voice. “I demand my trophy and for my likeness to be framed alongside the greats of yore, McGee and Tally Hwackuh!”

The other borg pulled out a walkie-talkie from her shirt pocket. “Uh, yeah, we got a code 9, passenger appears to have suffered from damage to the central processing unit, speaking incoherently.”

“Where is my trophy and my prestige? I earned it!” A feminine titter trailed behind him. “What are you cackling at, wench?”
“Hackiepoo, there’s this cool new thing they just came out with,” Wicked said, admiring her nails. 

“I don’t care!”
“It’s called…” Wicked’s form distorted into a blob of multicolored blocks before disappearing.

“Huh!?”

“... Lying ,” A voice whispered into his ear, and when he whipped his head around to the source, there Pixel stood on his tiptoes, cheesing.

“I’m sure you’re very familiar with it, you rat!” Hacker said, grabbing Pixel by the scruff. Pixel yelped like a puppy, face warped in discomfort. 

“By the way, you’re missing something up top,” Pixel said strained through the pain, attempting an irreverent grin.

“Up top?” Hacker put his free hand to his head, eyes widening at the smoothness at his fingertips. He dropped the imp on the ground with a howl as he scanned his chrome dome for his wig to no avail, then covering it in shame. “Wait, where’s your simple-minded friend?!”

Pixel stopped rubbing his aching back to look up at the other with realization. “Byte! Bytey! Here boy! Treeeat?” He cooed, waited a moment, then pulled at his face in dread. “No, no! Scrap! Treat always works! He’s really 404!”

“He can get lost all he wants after I rule Cyberspace,” Hacker said. “And not one moment before!”

“Byte! Byte!” Pixel continued to shout, running away into the throng on the main path, Hacker catching up and outpacing him.

“No, noooo, don’t go,” The female ride operator said in a soft monotone, eyes glazed over as she rested her head on her arms, folded on the desk. “There’s a code 9, he’s getting away.”

“Ah, someone should really stop them,” A similarly deadpan security guard said as he entered. “They’re getting away…they’re gone. Too late. We tried. I’m going on lunch.”

“Jeez, couldn’t Mother B have given us a hint on where they are? It’s busier than a farmer with one hoe and two rattlesnakes out here!” Matt said, brushing dirt off of his green sweater from the tumble out of the portal.

“We’ll find them in no time, Matt,” Inez said, straightening her glasses. “R-Fair City is a relatively small site, and Hacker is very distinguishable in a crowd.” 

“Ugly people tend to do that,” Jackie said with a chuckle. “And Hacker is uh-glee . Like, major uggo. Vomitrocious. SUPER–”

“We get it, Jax!” The other two said in unison.

“Earthlies!” A coarse voice squawked over the rush of borgs. “Over here!”

“Digit!” The three called back, running to the source to find their familiar purple feathered friend standing near a balloon-popping midway game.

“Dige! Did you find Hacker and the kids?” Matt said.

“Is that cotton candy on your face?” Jackie said.

“Number one, nnnooot exactly,” Digit said, rolling on the balls of his sneakered feet. “But I did find these cool rocks on the way! Number two, borghunting makes a guy hungry, okay?!”

“Rocks? Digit, this is important!” Matt said.

“I’m a boid! It’s what I do!” Digit shouted back, irritation forming in his features before he slumped and went into hysterics. “Oh, Earthlies! I’m hopeless without you! I’ve been at it for hours and I can’t find them! I guess I’m rusty after Hacker being gone for a month…”

“It’s okay, Digit,” Inez said, rubbing the baby soft down feathers on his back. It was apt of Hacker to make a borg with the most luxurious of materials. “I think the heat’s getting to you. If we collaborate, then surely we’ll find them!”

Digit gave a half-hearted smile. Inez always seemed so perceptive for her age, able to see the through line even as the older Cybermates faltered. His musings were interrupted by what sounded like someone screaming directly into his input drives at the highest volume scientifically possible, his H-drive working overtime to respond to the threat. It engulfed him completely, making every wire and bolt in his body vibrate in an agonizing frequency. He, and the children, covered their ears at what sounded like the lovechild of an atom bomb and a Gollywood pop star wailing in a vaguely melodic fashion, a chorus of insanity making everyone on the site squeeze their eyes shut in agony.

Digit opened his eyes in realization. His flesh-and-bone friends wouldn’t be able to handle this for long without suffering permanent hearing damage. Though it hurt to expose his audio input drive from the cacophony, he’d be able to withstand it long enough to take four pairs of industrial-grade earmuffs from his chest hatch and put them on his friends and himself.

The four of them stood unfazed by the screeching, though the sound tingled and rattled throughout their bodies. It created dizzying ripples in the air that warped the atmosphere like a mirage, making them see double. They attempted to mouth shouted words at one another to no avail, the only legible word from their lips being a wide-mouthed WHAT?

Digit hopped up and down as he gesticulated wildly in one direction, the kid’s heads darting to face it. He beckoned them to follow him, the four zig-zagging through stunned borgs to find the new bandshell where popular performers and artists often entertained. 

In the middle was what looked like a band, though every member in it collapsed next to their instruments except for the singer in the middle, the origin of the noise. A young boy with a puff of purple hair mouthed words and danced with theatrical flourishes not unlike a sugary sweet Cyber Idol, though at that distance she could have been a girl. 

Shouting at them did nothing but waste precious energy. They ran up the stage steps, hopping across dropped band equipment and bodies to catch up with them, though the young borg didn’t seem to notice. Matt, with not one second to waste, jostled them with a shove. Inez attempted to call his name at his roughness, but it was lost to the wind. The singing ended in a squeal, Byte stumbling backward and catching himself.

“You…you hit me,” Byte whined, the shock of it and the eyes of four stern strangers worsening the lump forming in his throat. Though that bird seemed familiar. His head turned away, his eyes darted from them to the floor and again as he shrunk into himself.

“I didn’t mean to!” Matt said, yelling louder than he had intended as he’d acclimated to the earmuffs. He took them off, the others following suit. “Why are you yelling so loudly?”

“I wasn’ yelling! I was singing!” Byte said, breaking from his frightened shell to defend himself. “I lost my friend an’ I thought he’d hear me an’ maybe everyone would like it too! Now he’ll never find me an’ it’s your fault!”

“You’re hurting our ears,” Jackie said. 

“I didn’ mean to!” Byte said, mocking Matt. “Thas’ what everyone says! That I should just stop singing forever ‘cuz it hurts everyone so much!” His voice began to break, tears welling in his resentful eyes.

“Nobody said that, now,” Digit said. “You just need to learn to keep your volume down.”

“I can’t, no matter how hard I try,” he said, fiddling with his heart-tipped tail as he stared at the boards beneath them, rolling tears blurring his vision.

“That can’t be true. You’re talking to us normally now. You just need some practice. I was terrible at piano when I first started out, even if I do have these musical gifts,” Jackie said, twiddling her slender fingers as if playing. “Let’s look at the facts. You lost your friend. What does he look like? Where did you last see him?”
“Jackie, we don’t have time for this,” Matt said. “Hacker, innocent children, remember?”

“Hey kids, we got a gig to play here!" The guitarist said as he shuffled to his feet.

“We’re on it!” Digit shouted back. “C’mon, Earthlies, the show must go on.” He beckoned them with a wing as they walked away and onto the fairground.

"SORRY!" Byte screeched louder than intended, making everyone within earshot wince.

“This is an innocent child.” Jackie said, looking Matt up and down. “Unlike you , I don’t need Motherboard to tell me what’s right and wrong.”

Matt’s brow furrowed. “That’s not-”

"Wait, are you..." Byte interjected.

A shrill yell interrupted him. “-yte! Byte! BYTE!” Byte turned to face the sound to see Pixel.

“Pixie!” Byte pranced to him, scooping the shorter borg in his arms and swinging him around as they both giggled like chipmunks. 

Pixel's demeanor hardened. "What were you thinking?"

Byte twiddled a curl of hair in a finger, face tinged pink. "Well, I-I thought I might be able to get my big break..."

"By deafening everyone on the site?" Pixel squished Byte's face, cheeks chubby and lips curling into a {} shape. "I adore you."

Digit's brow furrowed a tad at the curly-haired borg's fibbery, but gave a nonchalant shrug. “Well hey, that was easy!” Pixel's look of relieved amusement was replaced with surprise, then he grinned even wider, recognizing the four of them. 

“I think you spoke too soon,” Inez said, looking beyond the imps to see a figure behind them.

“Hacker!” The squad said. 

“Ah, isn’t it sweet?” Hacker said with a smug grin, having covered his head with an official R-Fair City ball cap. "Brother reunited with brother, evil supergenius reunited with… Earth brats .” His tone soured at those last words.

“Brother? You said he was your friend,” Digit said.

Byte showed a nervous grin to Hacker, the latter’s face darkening in accusation. “Uh, yeah. My brother, who’s my friend too ‘cuz we’re close,” he said, and the man’s anger eased ever so slightly, though he was sure he was due for either a tongue lashing or a magnetite blasting for this little stunt.

“Are these your kids?” Matt said. “Who in their right mind would let you adopt them?”
“I’ve had a change of heart, whether you believe it or not,” Hacker said, putting his hands on the imps’ shoulders. “Notice how I haven’t tried to take over Cyberspace for over a month now? We’ve developed a functional, heartwarming father-son relationship, haven’t we, boys ?” He squeezed them roughly, sending dull waves of pain into their triceps.

“Yeah,” they said in monotone, Pixel’s voice cracking.

“Aww. So shy. Come on now, don’t mumble. Say it so they can hear you,” he said, digging them deeper, their tails going stiff at the intrusion.

“Yeah!” Byte and Pixel said with forced enthusiasm, though Pixel mouthed something else on impulse.

Matt’s expression widened a tad, though he pretended not to notice.

“I’m gonna go use the bathroom,” Matt said, looking Pixel in the eye, then abruptly pointing his gaze toward the right. “Oh geez, something’s in my eye.”

“I gotta go too,” Pixel said. If there was a message there, he wouldn’t pass it up.

“I’ll come with you,” Hacker replied without skipping a beat, and Pixel’s expression scrunched in frustration. Then he scanned each of them, the mental calculations apparent in his face, then flashed a cheshire grin. “Actually, go ahead. We’ll be waiting for you.” Pixel’s shoulders relaxed.

The walk over was silent, the two of them stealing glances at the other in the hopes that they’d be able to express a mutual understanding of the situation without admitting anything.

The moist tile would be gross in any other situation, but the griminess of a theme park bathroom felt like a palace so long as it was a refuge from Hacker. Neither of them really having to go, they crowded around two sinks instead. Pixel let his matted hair breathe, oily strands sticking to his hot forehead.

“You’re…a girl?” Matt said, his disbelief enough to finally break his silence.

“I’m a borg, fleshy. And a kidnapping victim, but that’s hardly important,” Pixel said with a bitter chuckle as he attempted to straighten out his gray mop.

“So he didn’t adopt you! I knew it! What happened? What is he planning? The name's Matt, by the way.”

“Pixel," he said, returning the gesture with a nod. "Listen, we don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll give you the TL;DR. Hacker kidnapped me. Help. Please.”

“But how? I need to let Motherboard know all of the details so we can book him.”

“Sure that’ll work this time,” Pixel said. “‘Kay, me and Byte were at home, just minding our business, when Hacker scooped us up and the rest is history. Good enough?”

Matt’s eyes narrowed. “I want to believe you, I really do. But there’s no way for me to know that you aren’t working for Hacker unless you give me as much evidence as possible.”

“Are you glitchin’ me?”

“For someone who’s been kidnapped, you’re describing everything pretty casually.”

Pixel postured himself with the contrivance of a wannabe thespian, clutching his chest. “Hacker kidnapped me and Byte in the middle of the night and it was simply the most traumatic, world shattering experience I have ever been witness to in my drive. Every moment is agony. I simply can’t describe even a single detail.”

The door swung open, making Pixel’s H-drive skip a beat and his skin run cold before he realized it was simply a humanoid borg boy scurrying to a stall.
“Where do you live? Who are your parents?” Matt said, careful to keep his tone hushed.

“I…forgot,” Pixel stammered. “It was all just…so awful , I developed amnesia to cope.”

“Talk to me when you can remember to tell the truth,” Matt said with a scowl, turning his back to Pixel.

“Wa-a-ait!” Pixel said, flickering, gripping Matt’s sleeve before letting it go just as quickly. “I’ll spill, okay?

“So we paid Hacker a little visit at his hangar. Uninvited, in the middle of the night, yes, but stick with me here. We wanted to take a few souvenirs, sure, but nothing he’d ever miss, just a lil’ nanobyte, and if he did, who cares? He’s Hacker . He wants to win some Cyber Dad thing or some scrimscram, I don’t know. Really. He’s forcing us to be his servants to help ‘im do it.”

“A liar and a thief.”

“Sowwy I’m not your perfect little victim, I guess? Does that make kidnapping okay?”

“No, but it does tell me how much I can trust you. We’ll help, but as long as you confess what you’ve done to Motherboard.”

“You’re defending your worst enemy now?”
“I’m defending law and order.”
“You’re like, six!”

“Thirteen,” he corrected in that overly righteous cadence children do when they’re de-aged. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll beat him with or without your help, and I’ll make sure you learn your lesson,” he said, walking away.

“Carrot top, attorney at lawl,” Pixel said. “Gimme a break. You’re useless!”
“Right back at ya!” Matt said with a wave of his hand from behind.

“He’ll keep coming back like a roach because you’re nothing but a suckup to a puppet ruler!” Pixel nearly shouted. “You’re being conned! Phished! Groomed–you probably don’t even know what that word means!”

Matt stopped at the door. Jackie’s derisive sneer flashed into his mind; she’d never been one to question Motherboard’s judgment until recently. Maybe it was the first growing pains of puberty that began to spark a rebellious streak, but even Inez’s resolve faltered. A passive aggressive comment here or there, always occupied with something when the other two mentioned going to Cyberspace to hang out. It was only natural that they’d grown a bit weary, having been at this for two years now, balancing the trials of growing up and familial duties on the side.

“Take it back,” he said, just barely audible.

“What?”
“I said, take it back,” Matt’s eyes darkened in shadow from the overhead lights, the shimmering brown now dull. “Motherboard helps keep Cyberspace safe. I’m tired of people doubting her.”

“Some help of her to ignore a netizen’s e-mails, calls, and letters,” Pixel said. “At least now that he’s involved she might actually give enough of a scrap to listen. All of that storage space, and I don’t occupy even one file on her hard drive.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose. Motherboard has all of Cyberspace to look out for, and it’s impossible for her to answer every message she gets.”

“Three-hundred and seventy three.”

“What?”
“How many I sent before I lost hope. I kept count.” 

“‘Scuse me, can I use the sink?” The young borg said in a slight lisp from his snaggletoothed smile. His body segmented into dark silver metallic pieces like a ball-jointed doll.

The two didn’t even break eye contact as they stepped aside. Matt’s lips moved as if he were formulating a response, brow furrowing and loosening, but he didn’t say a word for several seconds. The boy washed his chrome-plated hands and slammed the door shut–certainly due to lack of coordination and not aggressiveness–but it made the two jump nonetheless.

“You’re not giving the whole story. I know it.”

Pixel stormed over to the door, but hesitated as he cracked it open, looking away from Matt. His features sat vacant, eyes glazed over with the seeming hesitancy of words left unsaid, then sharpening their resolve into a pointed glare. “If I did, would it matter?”

The door clicked shut and echoed off of the tile, leaving Matt in this theme park bathroom so far away from home that not even his parents knew it existed. The banality of it vaguely reminded him of Earth, the faucet dripping with an occasional plonk, and yet the alien nature of Cyberspace never truly set in until this moment.

Chapter Text

A white-jacketed borg clacked tapered, gloved talons on his similarly pristine desk in a similarly sterile office, marred only by an open document titled CERTIFICATION OF PATIENT SHUTDOWN on his computer. He’d done this hundreds, maybe thousands of times at this point, and yet the paperwork never ceased to make him click his tongue with its monotony.

Malware-related complications, he typed in the field titled “cause of shutdown”, and he wasn’t wrong , per se. It was true that Mr. Cogsby had contracted a worm from which he would never recover, one that would cause his body’s antivirus software to attack itself. A common seasonal virus was enough to leave him on the verge of death. Despite his decline, Mr. Cogsby had suddenly become quite lucid, even requesting to go for a swim. The two of them had nurtured a close friendship, with the sick borg’s family even crediting his technician’s high involvement with his miraculous recovery.

It hadn’t been his intention to let Mr. Cogsby’s hard drive crash; really, it hadn’t. A routine checkup for a terminally infected borg should have ended with a recommendation for bed rest and medication; not to mention, his warm and compassionate bedside manner.

It was a shame Mr. Cogsby had to lie. The man was also a technician; he’d claimed an accidental exposure with a belligerent patient had infected him. Unlikely, but his technician had enough respect to take the man at his word. However, for many borgs, the urge to make oneself right with a higher power before becoming a paperweight was a potent truth serum. During one particularly trying night, sweating and seizing, Mr. Cogsby admitted to his dear doctor that he’d gone to Pleasure Palace, an adult-only site, and debauched himself in vice and concupiscence after an argument with his wife.

It was really a shame. Mr. Cogsby was a stand-up gentleman on the surface, a benevolent man whom his technician aspired to replicate in his own work. It was a shame he had to shatter his family with deception, bring viruses to the marriage bed, and leave his children without a father. 

The conversion had been done without much pain on Mr. Cogsby’s part, he was sure. His body and face contorted in all manner of grotesque positions as the incantation sapped the last of his energy, ragged sobs gagged by a sponge, festering in his own excretion fluids by the time his H-drive stopped ticking. But surely he hadn’t been in as much pain as his suffering wife and children, a pain that would only multiply when they’d later discover the truth. Was it not the responsibility of his technician to bring that drawn out, inevitable pain to its conclusion?

Set within a creamy canine skull, the doctor’s orange irises glowed in their dark LED sclera, the display changing to emote ennui that his metal eye sockets could not. Another friend ruined by sin, he thought, those long fingers filling out the form with autonomic swiftness. 

His musing was interrupted by a high-pitched trill and vibration originating in his coat pocket, his antennae resembling triangular ears perking up on his head. He flipped open his PDA and lifted the receiver to his face.

“Turing? How are you? Wait, you’ll never believe this,” he answered with sensational zeal, though in hushed tones. “Cogsby’s out. And to think I thought he’d make a perfect disciple–a real family man! That’s what I get for trusting a Radopo-liar, I guess.”

He paused, head tilting. “No, I haven’t seen the news, I’ve been doing paperwork all day. If I have to look at another screen I think I’ll combust,” he said with a chuckle.

The smirk on his face disappeared as he stood upright. “…Where? …With whom?” 

His irises shrunk to mere single pixels. “You’re done, Turing.”

“Why? For wasting time playing telephone instead of acting. That really upsets me. A more courageous man, a righteous man, would not call me about this like a kid who threw up on the carpet waiting for daddy to come clean it. No, no, no. You don’t say when you get a second chance…stop. Turing…stop crying. Stop.

“Here, since you’re so clueless, I’ll give you one last assignment. Go to the Northern Frontier with Neo and Dell and keep guard. I’ll look for them myself. When I have them—are you listening?—turn your Magnetite pistol up to its highest potency, okay?

“Then…turn it on yourself.”

His irises became an inverted V shape, as chipper as his customer service-esque cadence. “If you won’t accept my gift of a dignified end, I’ll have them shoot you instead.”

Muffled weeping continued to escape the speaker, sharp gasps and heaving bouncing off of the clinical ivory walls of the office. With the unceremonious click and chirp of a button, the sobbing abruptly ceased.

The door swung open with a lilac-skinned young nurse on the other side of it, her eyes bewildered under cat-eye spectacles. “Dr. Haskell, is everything alright?”

“There you are,” Hacker said to Pixel, approaching the restroom. “You were taking so long I thought you’d run off.”

“Wouldn’t think of it, old man,” Pixel said. 

“Did you get through to ‘em, Bytey?” Pixel whispered.

“No…” Byte said. “I wan’ned to say somethin’, but he was breathing down my neck the whole time. ‘M sorry, ‘m just a ‘fraidy cat…”

“I didn’t have much luck myself,” Pixel said. “Snot-nosed brat.”

“Quit looking so sad, you’re making me look like some kind of monster or something,” Hacker said to Pixel, who slumped as they made their way through the fairgrounds, kicking away empty Cyberburpie bottles and candy wrappers with light-up sneakers. “What, aren’t you happy your saving grace has arrived? I don’t care what you told him, I dare them to try and stop me!” Hacker said with a cackle.

“It’s useless. Little chip thinks I’m on your side,” Pixel said. “Can I have my PDA back yet?” Even as a transient, making sure his PDA was charged and connected took top priority to fight off the blandness of reality creeping into Pixel’s periphery.

“They’re not wrong, are they?” Hacker said with a smirk. “And no. I hope your underdeveloped reptilian brain suffers from its lack of instant dot-com gratification. Or would you prefer pilfering for your next meal like a sewer rat in the streets?”

“Hey!” Pixel said. “My father was a rat and he never–uh, well, pilfering isn’t the wrong word to use, but it-it’s not very nice, and I don’t do it!” Admittedly, the decadent scent of food deep fried enough to saturate one’s circuits in grease and sugar drew Pixel’s attention to the growing craving for anything forming in his core. Suffer he did, that insidious sensation of boredom threatening to swallow and disembowel Pixel until he was nothing but a colorless husk.

Byte’s head lifted. “Well actually, ‘rember the time you–” is all he could say before the other’s death glare silenced him.

“Ha! I don’t believe you for a second. You’re freaks and more useless than a court jester with your little party tricks. What, is some other poor sap you ransacked out for blood?”
Byte piped up. “No, it’s ‘cuz we’re magical imps and–”

“YES! That’s exactly what happened,” Pixel said, shoving a hand over Byte’s mouth. “You know he likes to joke.” He almost wanted to thank Byte for his tendency to blabber, distracting him for a moment from the vacancy creeping deep into his mind and chest, making his H-drive sink.

“Hey, I wasn’ finished! ” Byte said, wrenching his hand away with a petulant upswing in his cadence. “Let me talk already!”

“I’ll humor you, Bitey Byte. I know you’re magic users, that much was obvious. Do humor me with the leprechaun bit,” Hacker said, chuckling.

Pixel’s figure staggered and skipped from Byte’s flank, crashing  into a young adult Tikivillager with copper skin that glistened in the sun. “Ow! Sorry!”

“Hey, what’s your problem, freak?” On his head sat a half-domed jar that contained his brain, which lit up when he spoke in lieu of his lips moving. Instead of a mouth, he had an immobile facsimile of bared teeth.

“FREAK?” Hacker said with an outraged upswing in his tone, lead crashing in his boots. “You listen here, bub! My son has very rare and incurable conditions! It’s not his fault he can’t stay in one place for long and he enjoys eating garbage!”

Pixel growled. “For the last time, I don’t eat trash!”

“Oh, we do,” Byte said, equal amounts of pride and spite sparkling in his amber eyes as he looked at Pixel and back at the stranger. “Like, a ton.”

“Well, put him on a leash, ‘cause he could hurt somebody! And a gag for that one ‘cause he almost blew my speakers out with his screaming!”

“Really?” Byte beamed. “You heard?”

“Get over yourself, you’ve got a scuffed shoe and a headache at most!” Hacker closed in on the borg’s face, his nose and chin nearly touching the other’s. “He has to live with this every day! Don’t you have empathy ? How would you like it if someone treated you like an animal for something you can’t control?”

“Yeah!” A female Solarian said, her head topped with a tropical umbrella. Onlookers jeered at the Tikivillager in turn.

The young man sucked his teeth. “Whatever,” he mumbled, heading off in the other direction to the boos and scorn of bystanders.

“Wow, uh, I mean, I-I-I didn’t know The Hacker had such a sensitive side,” The spider from Happily Ever After said to Ziff, the cyan pig that Hacker once made a deal with.

“Maybe he really is comin’ around,” Ziff said. Why are they so touchy-feely with one another? Don’t they have houses and water spouts to look after, Hacker briefly mused. The crowd that had gathered buzzed with speculation, with a solitary clap turning into a rush of righteous applause.

Pixel gawked at the audience, and then at Hacker. For a moment, it truly felt like he’d been genuine despite his former rudeness. He’d exploded with the kind of shameless head-biting that Pixel could only daydream about delivering once the scenario ended, and it worked. Strangers threw epithets like “freak” so often he no longer attempted to refute it. There was something undeniably cool about a big man getting angry and defending him, regardless of how cruel he’d been just before. Hacker, cool? He nearly wretched just entertaining the thought.

Hacker grinned as he basked in the awe of bystanders, then lowered his voice to a rumble as he turned to face the imps. “You’re lucky that people can’t get enough of inspirational shlock, girls. It makes me look like a saint for tolerating you, and people like having someone to gawk at and say ‘at least I’m not that broken!”

“Oh, I know,” Pixel said, face sagging. “I’ve read the forums about you for a long time.” He chuckled bitterly. Of course it was a joke. He cringed at himself for thinking it might have not been a joke.

“And I, uh…think yer’ a poopyhead,” Byte added with unwarranted smugness, rushing to contribute anything at all.

“What was that? I thought I heard some little rats squeaking,” Hacker said. “Step lively, now. We’ve got many more sites to browse today.” They trailed behind him to the parking lot, a yellow convertible adorned with Hacker’s likeness chirping with a press of a button on the man’s key fob. Once inside, Hacker grabbed a spare wig from the glove compartment and preened himself in the mirror, slathering gel until he’d styled it into place.

Byte sighed as he settled into the leather seat. “It feels like nobody cares ‘bout what I haf'ta say.”

Pixel, his cheeks still burning from that humiliation, gazed out the window. “Well, Byte, if I’m going to be completely honest, you’re a better listener than a talker. Some people, like me, can talk their way out of anything. Some other people, like you, have mouths bigger than their brains.”

Byte’s jaw dropped, eyes round as dinner plates before his thick magenta brows knitted. “You talked your way into all a’ this!”

“And you followed me, because you couldn’t say anything,” Pixel said, closing in on Byte’s face, syllables biting and terse. “You always have, ‘cause you know you’d be dead in a ditch without me to bail you out. You got lost at a theme park, Byte. I have to convince you not to eat poison on a regular basis. There’s a lobo about to steal us back from an even bigger lobo and all you can think about is being heard ? Grow up, you prototype. And savor your last moments of this, because pretty soon, we won’t know freedom. Only Cyberhell. ”

Byte made what sounded like air squeaking from a release valve, his face warping as he plugged the dam of tears that often broke at the slightest provocation. “Thas’ what’ll happen to you, but ‘m gonna run away. I won’ follow you. I’ll take care a’ myself without your help and be a big time Cyber Idol while you’re wastin’ away in a cage gettin’ zapped ‘till your hard drive crashes.”

The light in Pixel’s eyes disappeared as they widened and resembled dull archery targets; pink and round, with a mere speck of a pupil. “You little ingrate. The only thing keeping me from knocking your bulbs out is that I can call a bluff.”

An unbearable heat sliced through Pixel’s hand as something latched on and squeezed until it punctured, sending jolts of stinging electricity through him. The howl that he released was so loud that the Mean Mobile veered, nearly crashing into a speeding Cybercoupe as they all screamed for mercy until the vehicle screeched to a hard stop.

Pixel scowled at Byte in equal parts pain and fear, something Byte had never been able to stir in the boy before. “What’s wrong with you, you freak?” A flash of something else, a flinch or realization, glinted in Pixel’s eyes with that last word.

Fortunately the bite hadn’t been as severe as Hacker’s due to Pixel’s fingerless glove, but Byte stared at the holes in it with horror stretching his facial features. “I…I didn’ mean–”

“ENOUGH!” Hacker yelled, whipping his head around to face them. “Until I’m finished with you, you’re not going anywhere! I’ve already told you you’re my property until I take over Cyberspace, and when that happens, you’ll think living in a cage is a cakewalk compared to what I plan to do! Chaos and confusion, mayhem and madness!” He laughed with ferocious power, turning into these hiccup-esque inhales like the clucking of some insane rooster.  The imps simply sat shell-shocked.

“Or…” he continued, his face growing exasperated. “Maybe I’ll just let ‘them’ have you if you can’t behave.” A duet of “no”’s followed this proposition, making Hacker smirk. “Then the two of you are going to be real palsy-walsy whether you like it or not.”

A wave of relief washed over the imps, much to their surprise. Logically, they were probably in more danger with this man than their pursuer, but it had all sounded less real. Vague chaos and confusion wasn’t as scary as the threat of tangible abuse; in fact, it bordered on comical, considering how many times he’d tried and failed to realize it.

Neither of them could manage “palsy-walsy”, not even able to look at one another, but they stayed placid. Byte, restless, played out that scene on loop in his head, the look of primal fear on his friend’s face, the word “freak,” it all haunted him.

When the Cybersquad visited the Cybrary, they’d hope to leave knowing Hacker hadn’t adopted children after all. However, much to their chagrin, adoption records were not public information, and Motherboard wasn’t in a state to access it herself. Matt’s shoulders fell at this claim; he hadn’t realized just how tense he’d been. That’s right; Motherboard wasn’t well. If Pixel was telling the truth and the messages had been sent since she’d gotten sick, then it would be Hacker’s fault, not hers. 

Yet, the lingering anxiety settling in the pit of his stomach remained; he didn’t even have the gumption to tell the others what he’d heard out of a desire to protect Motherboard’s image. The claim, so unlikely and bizarre, was an odd thing to lie about, and for what gain?

With that option out, and with the Tikiville Father’s Day parade the next day, preventing Hacker from winning the Cyber Dad of the Year award became top priority.  

“But how will we do that? Matty said nothing seemed off when he talked to the kid,” Digit said, turning to face the boy. “Are you sure he seemed happy with Hacker? I wish we could have talked to ‘em both before Hacker hauled ‘em away…”

Matt shifted, putting his weight from one foot to the other, unable to find a comfortable position to stand in. “Well…”

“Matt,” Jackie chided.

“Listen, can you blame me? I don’t know what to believe! He looked like a kid, sure, but didn’t talk like one at all!  They’re in cahoots, okay? Even if he was kidnapped, he’s a thief and a liar!”

“You just lied to us!” Jackie said, closing in on Matt. 

“You wouldn’t have believed me anyway, you’re always finding ways to discredit me!”

“GUYS!” Inez squawked, the squad and nearby borgs rubbernecking in their direction. “I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but we need to stick to the facts, okay? Father’s Day is tomorrow and Cyber Dad of the Year is crowned at the Tikiville parade. If Hacker is planning something, our first priority is making sure that he doesn’t win.”

“Sorry, Nezzie,” Matt said, being met with a scowl from the girl at the sobriquet. “Inez. Inez. I really need to get it right, I know.”

“But what will we do to help those poor kids out? Or adults, or whatever?”
“If the adoption was all for a plot, Hacker will have no use for them once it’s over, right? And if it’s legitimate, surely Hacker will have no problem with us talking with them alone and honestly, like we should have done in the first place. For now, let’s work on Hacker’s PR. There are way better dads in Cyberspace than him. Creech’s dad won last year, and they never give the award to the same person two years in a row, so…”

“So who’s a dad that could have a chance at beating Hacker?” Digit said.

“I think I have an idea,” Matt said. “And his history with Hacker might be just the ammunition we need.”

Now in Control Central, the three had squabbled over who would be the one to call Slider, with Matt taking the reins from the girls. When he had picked up the phone, his voice trembled from the speaker of the Skwak Pad. “H-hello?”

“Slider!” Jackie and Inez chirped as Matt looked at Digit with a “see what I have to put up with?” gaze.

“Hey guys, sorry I took so long, I just…I just got some bad news,” he said, congested.

“What’s wrong?” Inez cooed, her eyebrows scrunching up with concern. His face glistened with dew, and his eyes looked puffy. “Are you sick?”

“No, it’s even worse,” Slider said. “I just found out my uncle died.”

The four gasped. Even Matt, who had less incentive to care for the boy’s personal life, felt his stomach doing flips.

“Trigger?” Jackie guessed, though she’d already known the answer. “...Forever?” She added, the biomechanics of borgs only vaguely familiar.

“He was doing so well, I don’t get it…” Slider said, sniffing up a wet slurp of fluid. His voice creaked out so hoarse and so low that they weren’t sure if it was grief or puberty afflicting him more. 

“Something similar happened when my abuelito died,” Inez said. “He got up and moved around for the first time in weeks, even played a game of chess with me. Then the next day, he was gone.”

Jackie, Matt, and Digit simply looked at Slider and Inez, then each other. They’d been fortunate enough not to have dealt with a loss yet, at least not of someone as close as a grandfather. 

“It’s so weird. He looked horrible, with his hair falling out, all these sores everywhere, as thin as a skeleton. Sometimes he wouldn’t recognize me or dad. Then one day he seemed completely cured. He even looked younger than he did before he’d gotten sick. I don’t get it…” 

Jackie’s eyes became misty. “Oh, Slider, I’m so sorry…” It ate away at her to assume he might have just imagined that as some way to cope with the loss, but it hardly mattered if he did.

“It just…it reminds me of what happened to dad,” Slider choked, barely able to get the words out without the massive lump in his throat choking him. “There one day, then gone the next, and looking all old…” 

“Speaking of that, how’s Coop holding up?” Digit said.

Slider just shook his head. After what felt like minutes, hums of whirring fans and machines filling the silence in the control room, he spoke up. “I’ve never seen him cry until today. I always thought my dad was this invincible guy, but it’s like everything until now finally caught up with him. He’d missed out on so much time with Uncle Trig when he was hiding from Hacker, and now he’ll never be able to make up for it.”

“Can we come over? We want to be there for you, Slider,” Inez said.

Slider’s gaze traveled around, considering the consequences of a sudden visit. “I don’t want to surprise dad if he doesn’t want visitors, but…I think the last thing he needs is to be alone right now. It’s the last thing I need right now. Give me a sec to ask, okay?” The squad nodded and Slider’s video display turned off for about half a minute before he turned it back on. 

“What did he say?” Matt said, the only thing of substance he could muster. All of these emotions filled him with an overwhelming sense of “ick” he couldn’t explain, but knew he wasn’t supposed to feel. The urge to spill Hacker’s plan had been completely blindsided by this event; there was no way to bypass grief without appearing insensitive. Even worse was the resentment that bubbled in Matt’s core. Of course Slider would have some way to monopolize everyone’s attention when they needed him, even if he wasn’t trying.

Something resembling a whisper of a faint smile showed on Slider’s face. “He said it’s alright. He probably won’t come out of his room, though.”

Darn it. Those pathetic wet eyes of Slider’s couldn’t maintain Matt’s ire, plunging himself into the “worst person on Earth” category in his mind. There was something so… Hacker-ish about his petty irritation with the boy. Yuck. Even so, the invisible hourglass floating above them all spilled its sand without mercy.

“I don’t know,” Slider said, now sitting across from the squad on a rolling stool, undoubtedly used by Coop at the shop at some point. “We’re going through a lot right now. I know it’s important, but…I don’t know if I can do it. All I can feel is the emptiness where Uncle Trig used to be.”

“Slider, we really hate to ask this of you at such a painful time,” Jackie said. “But we don’t have any time left . We’re running out of options, and Cyberspace could be doomed if Hacker gets what he wants.”

Slider sighed, running a hand through his shaggy hair, supporting his head with an elbow on his thigh. “So, you need me to show everyone how great my dad is, huh? Well, that can’t be hard. I just don’t know how we’ll be able to convince everyone by tomorrow. It really feels like a stretch.”

“Hacker’s been able to convince all of Cyberspace he’s changed in just a few hours,” Matt said. “How can we reach just as many people without going all over the place?”

“If only we could appear anywhere we wanted just like Motherboard can,” Digit said.

Inez, who has been standing on her head since they’d arrived, lit up. “We can!”
“We can?” Everyone said in unison.

“I’ve got a plan,” Inez said, flipping to stand upright. “We’ll be able to show everyone in Cyberspace how great Coop is all at once!” She paused. “Only with Slider’s approval. We can’t force him to do anything.”

“You’re not forcing me,” Slider said, determination forming in his brow.  “I want to put Hacker in his place just as much as you do. Maybe this is just what my dad needs right now, to show him he’s not…he’s not alone.” The tears he’d fought off until now overflowed in hot rivulets. 

Jackie, Inez, and Digit swarmed him in affection, holding Slider as he silently shook in their embrace. Matt couldn’t bring himself to touch Slider, at least not in that way. A handshake or a fist bump would be the furthest from appropriate. So he simply brought himself up from the couch to stand closer, a silent olive branch to put their cold war with one another on hold.

The ride in the Mean Mobile from site to site had been bittersweet. Teasing Hacker never failed to entertain, and he had no choice but to take it on his massive chin. They watched him wobble like a newborn fawn on the ice in Penguia, soaked him in Solaria, and roped horses in Sensible Flats; well, until Sheriff Judy decided to wrangle Hacker herself. Hacker liked to talk in this goofy Southern drawl and got so in-character as an Old West bandit that they thought he might have actually been enjoying himself there.

The fuzzy fringe of emptiness that usually crept in the background when Pixel had no device to toy with vanished. After all, who needed to troll online when you had your target right in front of you? Luxuriating in the sham of a loving family for a few moments got Byte’s mind off of his troubles. They’d never been on vacation, and any time left for fun after pillaging for necessities was at Pixel’s behest, usually of the antisocial variety. 

Yet, neither of them could truly relax, the tension palpable. The feeling of surveillance only became more intense as they hopped from site to site, feeling more and more eyes on them, and even cameras from Cybercitizens attempting to capture the unbelievable scene.

“I’m sorry,” the two blurted out at once, then hesitated. “You first,” they said in sync again.

“I guess I kinda deserved to get bitten,” Pixel said, rubbing the affected hand. “I’m just freaked out and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, okay?”

“No, I went too far,” Byte said, gripping him. “I’m nothin’ without you. I know you do so much jus’ ta’ keep me alive…I know ‘m useless, but you still keep me ‘round anyway…I promise I’ll listen…”

“Aw, jeez, don’t scratch the paint, buddy,” Pixel teased, cradling Byte’s head on his shoulder. “I know you didn’t mean it, so don’t strain your little CPU worrying about it. You’re plenty useful to me. We were built to be a pair, weren’t we?”

Byte’s eyes sparkled, H-drive soaring. “Yeah. We need each other!”

“We’re a pair of freaks. Nothing’s gonna get between us,” Pixel said with a hug. “I promise.”

“I said be palsy-walsy, not…whatever this is,” Hacker piped up as he glared at them from the rear view mirror.

“Sorry, boss, are we not close enough? Should we kiss instead?” Pixel said, closing in on Byte’s lips.

“I’d rather you go back to nearly killing us all.”

“Boss? Thas’ new,” Byte said.

Pixel lowered his voice a bit. “Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and it seems like workin’ for Hacker might be the lesser of two evils, namsayin’? Not ideal, but it’s a roof above our heads, maybe a morsel to chow here and there if we’re lucky.”

Byte’s eyes widened. “I thought you hated him! What if he shoots us again? Or cuts us up into lil’ pieces and eats ‘em?”

“The shooty situation is moo cho problemateek,” Pixel started. “But, maybe this is just the lack of rechargin’ talkin’, but…if we’re useful enough, maybe he’ll protect us. Motherboard’s fleshpigs won’t help unless it’s good for their bottom line. All we can do is make the best of a bad situation.”

“He’s not too nice, but…you might be right."

“It sucks. Majorly. But unlike someone else we know, his bark is bigger than his bite.”

“And nobody’s bite is bigger than mine,” Byte said with a grin, then his face drooped remembering the incident earlier that day. “Hey, Pix…” he said, twiddling his thumbs. “D’ya think we need counseling?”

“Naaaaah,” Pixel said, slouching into the seat with an indulgent spread of his legs. “Counseling is for people who are too weak to fight it out.”

“Okie-dokie, artichokie!”

“What?!” Hacker exclaimed, making the imps jump.

“Artichokes are veggies, I think?” Byte said.

“No, they’re fruits,” Pixel said matter-of-factly.

“Okie-dokie, artichok–”

“What in blazes do they think they’re doing with my Wreaker?!” Hacker said, making the other two direct their gazes to follow Hacker’s. “Those tinwits! I’ll have their heads on pikes!” Indeed, the Grim Wreaker soared through the sky at a breakneck pace, uncoordinated and rickety in its trajectory. As much as he resented admitting it, Pixel nearly drooled imagining himself breaking the sound barrier in that big beauty of a ship, hoping he’d get a chance to see the interior beyond the dungeon. 

“Fasten your seatbelts duncebuckets, we’re about to get sporty!” Hacker said, revving up the engine and speeding to catch up with the Wreaker. The imps’ hair and jowls flapped in the wind, screaming with amusement as the Mean Mobile screeched through the atmosphere, dodging honking Cybercoupes and space junk along the way. Instead of speeding the other way, the Wreaker barrelled towards them, Hacker swerving out of the way as the imp’s bodies jerked and collided.

Hacker stalled the vehicle, and the Wreaker followed suit. He stood up in the convertible, his wig disheveled. “ARE YOU INSANE? GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT, IDIOTS!” The green bubble on the Wreaker opened, satisfying Hacker for at least a moment before a giant claw swung out from the compartment. “What are you doing!?”

The amused-loopy afterglow of the ride faded when Hacker’s infamous henchmen didn’t show themselves. For at least a minute, nobody did, Hacker’s shouting of no consequence. Images of Buzz and Delete flashed into Pixel’s mind. The two of them, hardly competent enough to be of any help to their failing boss, wouldn’t know the first thing about piloting a complex spacecraft. Though rough in execution, the person in the cockpit was clearly experienced. 

A person who was not a mere ship-jacker, but someone who had tracked them with intention, taking their only means of protecting themselves with him.

Byte and Pixel slowly turned to face one another in hopes of comfort, prolonging the inevitable assumption of mutual doom the other would confirm with hollow eyes.

Before they could speak, the claw reached out and into the Mean Mobile, dangling above Byte and Pixel for a moment before crushing Byte in its grasp. He cried out with a wolf’s strident bark and howl, though it sunk into the mossy green mire of Cyberspace in its futility. His moist eyes squeezed so tightly shut his features wrinkled and crumpled up like they’d been scrawled with a shaky hand. Pixel’s endoskeleton blanched as his friend’s screams shook in his core, the sound bestial and haunting like something else owned him, that same thing that sunk its teeth in without restraint.

Pixel attempted to wrench Byte out of its grasp to no avail, pouncing at a free leg and taking the shape of a gorilla. This made Byte’s screeching even more hoarse as Pixel and the claw nearly drew and quartered him in their opposing pulls, the wires in his body so taut he thought they’d snap. 

Pixel shrieked and his form shattered as if he’d been run through a paper shredder, a stab in his core and a lump forming as he’d realized what wound he’d created. He held on to the boy’s leg for dear life in imp form, the claw retracting back into the Wreaker. The two of them called out for Hacker of all people, desperation killing any semblance of dignity in their screaming voices. 

The clutch of the man’s hands on Pixel’s ankle would have been an egregious violation of decency before, now yearning for it the way a baby paws at its mother’s bosom for primal security. When Hacker did just that, the iron in Pixel’s chest lifted, only to plummet back down when his grasp slipped, taking Pixel’s shoe with a growl.

Hacker shrunk to the size of a doll as the claw yanked the imps upwards, blurring into a greenish-purple blob of ink through their tears before all became black.

Chapter Text

Byte and Pixel dropped to the floor with a thud, unable to so much as stand before the familiar screech and clang of metal above them made their circuits run cold.

Bars interlaced in a lattice surrounded them, entrapping them in a cube barely large enough to fit both of their bodies. Pixel rattled against them, yanked them, body slammed them, attempted to transform or teleport, but his fatigue proved to be insurmountable, that last transformation taking the energy he had left. He hadn’t had a true recharge since before they’d been taken by Hacker, only blinks of hibernation.

Pixel swore that Haskell had taken them–no–that they’d never left at all, that they were back in that sterile room with all sorts of tools and specimens and books and diagrams and they’d be stuck there until their hard drives finally failed. He froze, knowing struggling was a futile action that would lead to more punishment.

His eyes glazed over and he no longer piloted his own body, but instead watched this horror movie of a life from behind the foggy veil in the theater. The machine turned to face Byte, balled up and trembling in the corner. If he could feel anything at all, surely sympathy would pain him.

Byte didn’t dare say a thing; never again would he speak. He only spoke and stayed silent at the wrong times. They’d never be in this cage again had he just allowed Pixel to have his fun in Hacker’s hangar and get out. He just had to stop him.

He just had to get up in front of everyone and make their ears hurt with his singing. He said so many mean things to the only person who protected him. He should have stayed mute even after they’d escaped that place.

“One day, your voice is going to reach someone who needs it, mija.” What a lie. Papito abandoned him, having to go and die like that. He said that on purpose just to make his demon child suffer. If he’s watching now, he’s laughing.

A shadowed figure took the pilot’s seat and the ship rumbled to life, speeding away at a ludicrous pace to a destination unknown until they landed on an island teeming with garbage. Scrap littered the island, orbiting around it even, a graveyard of defunct devices and questionable components. Disposing of remains in Discardia came with severe legal consequences, but even borgs in utopian Cyberspace had skeletons to clear from their closets.

The figure picked up the cage and put it onto a long rolling dolly with a large, misshapen trash bag next to them. It took them down to the surface and carried them as casually as dogs in a kennel, cybergulls crying all the way as they circled in wait to pick at the borgs’ rusting entrails.

For what other reason would they be dropped here than to be disposed of? Perhaps Haskell became tired of his experimenting and decided to take out the trash, as he often reminded them that they’d amount to no more than that.

Byte and Pixel held each other close, their one and only comfort knowing that they’d always be together, even in tatters at the bottom of a landfill. The quickening of their H-drives staved off the exhaustion; how cruel was it of their bodies to betray them when an eternal hibernation would be the gentler option.

A yellow, spherical machine with all sorts of antennae and doohickeys shooting from it like a sprouted potato sat before them, the hatch and buttons the only things of evident utility. The man used one hand to smash a keypad until the hatch of the machine popped open with a harsh bounce and clank.

With a strained grunt, the man heaved the lumpy trash bag into the machine, cursing in frustration as it struggled to fit until it finally made way. The bag disappeared entirely, not even making a thud as it fell inside.

The imps jolted to attention at the roaring of a motor and a painful rubber screeching like the precursor to an automobile accident off in the distance. Maybe the reinforcements had arrived to assure their demise. Or was it…

“Unhand my henchmen, you feminine-hipped, aggressively overcompensating meathead!” A nasty baritone bellowed, snapping Byte and Pixel out of their grief-stricken trances. That man sure knew how to give a pointed insult. Hacker was practically dripping with condensation as he sprinted towards them, magnetite ray in hand.

The imps jostled about with discomforted cries as their captor ran in a zig-zagging motion, dodging blasts that flew with high-pitched zaps just cyberinches from their heads.

“Learn to aim, lobo, I’m not a toilet seat!” Pixel shouted, the near lodging of a magnetite chunk in his head dissuading any thoughts that this could be a mirage. In all of the commotion, the smallest iota of…gratitude bloomed in seeing him?

Left. Right. Left. Right. Forward. Then Byte and Pixel conked heads one more time as the cage was dropped on the ground, dust billowing.

“Don’t you dare do what I think you’re doing!” Hacker said, aiming at the man who produced a pistol of his own from a holster, glowing blue. “I’m not finished with them yet!”

“This has nothing to do with you, you has-been. Butt out,” the man said.

“TURING!” A bright tenor trumpeted from beyond the three’s line of sight, causing Byte and Pixel to cower and tremble before they could even look at the skeledog. “What are you doing? Where are Neo and Dell?”

“Funny that you mention it,” Turing said with a wry grin creeping up on his face, low, gruff chops of laughter escaping through gritted teeth as he gestured toward the machine. “They’ve gone eco-friendly. Thanks for the code, by the way. The black hole would have cost me a fortune to use.”

“I’d have you blacklisted from every hospital in Cyberspace if you survived, Turing. Either I blow your brains out now or you’ll do it yourself later. Now get away from that cage,” Haskell said.

“BOOO-RIIING!” Hacker honked. “Crash your hard drives already, I’ve got sites to conquer!” ZAP. He barely dodged a chunk of magnetite. “Hey, watch the chin!”

Turing took the distraction as an opportunity to duck behind the cage, metal jingling and clanging as he unlocked it, purple and red particles flying past with sci-fi whooshes. He winced as a purple chunk grazed his cheek, frustration mounting with a growl at the unruly thing until he yanked the door open along with the imps. The firing stopped when he held the two of them to his chest, shielding himself with them.

“Now, Haskell, if you want your precious little devils back, you’ll…” Turing paused.

“You’ll…uh…um…” A mental haze filled where his thoughts once were and his grip on the imps slackened. “What am I doing here? Who are you?” Byte and Pixel scrambled aside.

Haskell smirked as he stepped closer, his white coat practically glowing among the sea of dingy trash. “I’m your guardian angel, Turing,” he said in a honeyed tone, still pointing the pistol at them. “It’s time for you to come home.” “Come home,” he echoed, seemingly without understanding what he was saying.

“You see that blue thing there at your feet? Pick it up.” “Pick it up,” he obliged.

“That’s the ticket. Now, put the pointed end towards your face,” he commanded, and the other obeyed.

With a press of a button and a pop, high-potency magnetite ripped through Turing’s face, a blue liquid spurting from his head as his body landed on the ground with an unceremonious thud. Hacker’s breath hitched. An air-rending, whistle-like shriek came from Pixel, the other imp still hugging his knees in silence.

“Shut it!” Haskell said, making the two flinch and quiver like jelly. “Hm. That was easy.” He rubbed the nape of his neck before turning to Hacker. “Want what he’s having? Purple magnetite.”

Hacker gaped for a moment, his H-drive pulsating, drops of condensation doming on his head. This hadn’t been the first time he’d seen someone killed, after all, creating his wealth from nothing wasn’t without bloodshed. Yet, Haskell treated it with such nonchalance it made even a hardened villain like him shiver. “Purple…magnetite? That doesn’t exist.” Haskell chuckled. “Oh, it does. Enough to crash 30 hard drives in a single shot. This is the real good stuff.” He sauntered over to the other man with a swagger in his walk. “Neato, huh?”

Hacker’s brow quirked a tad. “Who are you?”

Haskell’s head dipped and he laughed an acrid, sort of muted tittering before he looked back up at him. “Don’t you know who I am, string bean?”

“I’d remember a freakish face like that.”

Haskell snarled. “At least I’m only a monster on the outside. Hard to believe this is what’s become of Motherboard’s favorite child.”

Hacker’s magnetite gun wobbled with an unsteady aim, stepping away from the man closing in on him. He’d prefer if he’d just be shot and have it over with if anything, but…the way Turing’s eyes took on a milky smog, how it seemed like he’d had his programming rewritten instantly…he resented admitting it, but in Hacker’s nightmares he looked just like that.

His memories nothing but muddled fragments, he wouldn’t be able to remember a life without serving Motherboard in his dreams. Crying in the Chapel by Elvis would play slowed down, and he’d type away for hours at Control Central, in a happy-go-lucky trance, looking at lines of code for so long that a ghost of the image would stay burned in his eyelids when he shut them.

Something snapped in Hacker, knowing that either he’d die now, or face that nightmare when Motherboard finally lobotomized his code for good. He charged for Haskell, gripping at his wrists with a tremendous struggle, summoning a strength even the egotist himself didn’t know he was capable of. Purple shots flung haphazardly throughout the dump.

“You're stronger than I remember,” Haskell said with a chuckle. “But not strong enough.” As if every wire in his body was exposed and being yanked to the point of splitting, Hacker’s face twisted in agony as the purple smoke filled his orifices. “Ah, what a shame. With your immense intelligence and knowledge of Motherboard’s inner workings, you could have made a high ranking officer for the Restoration.”

“Sto-o-o-p!” Pixel stuttered, but it had no effect.

Hacker began to choke, clawing at his throat.

Byte’s lips twisted into a crooked grin at the sound. Just die already, you pathetic, selfish, bigoted man. Everyone will celebrate when you’re finally gone. You’ll never change. Haskell smirked and let out a puff of air from his nose.

“I can’t stay angry at you, even when you’re like this. Only I can make you clean again, Hacker. I’ll create the world you’ve always dreamed of. I’ll finally take you away from this place.”

Byte made a silent, bitter snicker through his teeth. This is what you deserve for all that you’ve done. For trying to kill your mother, for making everyone miserable, for taunting us with a facade of family for your own ends.

Every line of Hacker’s code seemed to be breaking apart. His thoughts deteriorated into a mess of garbled nonsense as the all-consuming pain made him howl as to beg for death. Pixel continued to yell, but it made no difference.

Byte peeked over his clutched knees to look at them. I can’t wait to finish what I started and devour every last chunk of circuitry from your lifeless body, just as he’ll ask of me. This is what I deserve. I’m a freak. I’m a wild animal in need of containment. And you know what? I like it.

Hacker took on a nauseating pallor as he sobbed and coughed, teeth gnashing, sweat and tears slicking his face as he fell to his knees.

Good. Spend your last moments regretting all of your sins.

For just a moment, Byte saw Hacker in Sensible Flats crooning an off-tune folk song with mirth crinkling his eyes. He could smell the faint spice of his skin warming him as he held his arm. He heard the way his boots clicked the ground when he’d come to Pixel’s defense.

No…it’s all just a lie…just die already. You’re less than trash. You’re irredeemable. Even fighting to your death…it was all for yourself in the end.

Bluish vomit dribbled down Hacker’s chin at this point. His features became sallow and his refusals to concede weaker. Byte tucked his head back into his knees.

…

…Why can’t I watch you die?

You’re terrible…you’re so horrible…

You don’t deserve any of my sympathy…

…and yet…

“ENOUGH! YOU’RE HURTING HIM!” Byte roared as he stood, eyes flaring with the rage that quietly battled all of his mental defenses until it was set to rain down payloads of merciless napalm. Pixel jumped, breaking him out of his freeze long enough to hide behind the Forever Gone machine.

Byte released a primal cry that would wake giants from a thousand-year slumber. A distorted chorus of the damned rippled the air, as if every forgotten soul buried on the site joined him in serving retribution.

Haskell and Hacker recoiled as their exoskeletons rattled to the point it felt like their metallic skin would begin to peel. Hacker’s impulse won over his pain, disarming Haskell and creating distance between the two. Hacker and Byte flashed a look at one another that made their alliance unmistakable and Byte ran to retrieve his friend, running back towards the Wreaker.

Hacker stumbled to his feet, his will the only thing keeping him from keeling over. Byte’s ankle rolled as he ran, making him cry out. They tried to sprint, but Byte struggled to catch up on account of the dull pounding in his leg. Hacker handed Pixel the purple gun, grabbed them both, and flung them over his wide shoulders, sprinting and looking over to see if Haskell was gaining.

“Shoot, Pixel!” Hacker commanded.

“Like this?” He fiddled with the device a bit before a purple chunk flew out with a ZWING and the recoil made his small arm jerk. Hacker had already regretted giving it to him, but he didn’t have a third hand to aim. Pixel made a sinister, yet coy giggle like a girl possessed, firing with reckless abandon at the shrinking Haskell in the distance. “This is awesome!” Maybe they wouldn’t land, but they’d be a distraction, Hacker coped internally.

“Save some ammo!” Hacker scolded. “Need to study!”

Zigzag, zigzag, left, right, left, right, straight. The site teemed with piles of trash to create a labyrinth of filth with no clear exit, but Hacker seemed to know where he was going.

For a while.

He whipped his head around attempting to retrace his steps with some identifiable piece of trash he’d seen on the way in, but confusion gripped him with a surge of boiling panic. He’d only just been able to gather his thoughts from the murky mire that Haskell had melted his brain into enough to admonish Pixel.

“What’s the matter?” Byte said. “Why did you stop?” Hacker’s H-drive pounded in his head, what little breath he’d recovered knocked out of him.

“Hacker!” Haskell shouted, far enough to be unsure of the direction and yet close enough to make their chests lurch.

“Go, go! What are you waiting for?!” Pixel shrieked, small fists pounding into his broad back.

“Where are we going?!” Hacker said with uncharacteristic urgency in his voice, making the imps strike a look at one another as knowing shock overtook them.

“Don’t think I’m done with you!” Haskell screamed, a canine, guttural roughness searing his words with livid impatience. “You’re already dead! One day Motherboard won’t be able to protect you! Just let me put you down!”

The imps wriggled from his grasp and ran.

“C’mon!” Byte said with a yank of Hacker’s hand, wincing at the sharp wince of pain ravaging his ankle. They attempted to traverse the cesspool enough to at least see the Wreaker over the high hills of trash, but Byte lagged behind, clearly favoring one leg over the other.

“Fine then! I’ll splay your innards out on hooks until you’re begging me to die, you ingrate!” Haskell barked, his voice rageful and more crisp than ever. “You’ll miss choking on your puke!”

Pixel saw a hill with an incline just gentle enough to scale. “Guys, up here! We’ll be able to find the ship!” Sounds of crunching plastic and metal off in the distance closed in, but he didn’t dare look back.

Byte ran with every iota of effort his weak limbs would allow him as he landed hard on his affected leg, sending an agonizing bolt through his foot with a harsh scream. He collapsed to the ground, eyes misting with tears as soon as his jaw hit the dirt. I’m gonna die. I couldn’ save anyone. I was jus’ a burden up until the end.

“Byte!” Pixel called, turning to face him. Hacker looked back but kept running, climbing the mountain of waste.

“Give me that thing!” Hacker said, cognizant enough to gesture towards the magnetite gun in Pixel’s hand. He tossed it to him and he held the grip of the gun between his teeth, beginning to scale the mountain of trash.

“What are you doing?!” Pixel shouted. “He’s hurt! Stop–” A harsh crumble of aluminum made his heart jump out of his throat, jerking his gaze backward.

Hacker continued to climb, though the irregular surface made it difficult for the smooth soles of his boots to gain traction.

A scream nearly made him slip as he jumped, but looking back was not an option when Cyberspace’s future potentate hung in the balance. This plan was a horrible mistake, but there would always be new ones to concoct.

“HAC-HACKER! HE-E-E-LP!” Pixel cried, but he continued to climb. Thee Hacker would not lay his life down for some brat that happened to cry loud enough to be a distraction. His pleads stirred not so much as a twinge of sympathy in him. Shrill screams and the shifting of scrap continued to pierce the air as Hacker climbed just mere feet from the peak of the hill. Then they suddenly stopped.

"You're next, beanpole!" Haskell shouted up at Hacker, but he refused to look down. The top of the heap loomed over him just inches away, and yet he couldn't grab a foothold...

Haskell subdued Byte and Pixel by their necks with a purple chain of smoke, no longer conscious and lying on the ground.

"Ready or not, here I come!" Haskell said, scaling the heap with petrifying speed. "I win, Hacker! I found you!"

Hacker nearly got whiplash turning to face him, his jaw widening in shock. Why Haskell wanted these useless little hellions was beyond his comprehension. A couple of cheap party tricks isn’t worth killing someone! He stopped for a moment and narrowed his shrewd gaze.

No reasonable person would go through all of this if that's all there was to it. 

Haskell laughed like a mad hyena as the tips of his blue gloved claws touched Hacker's ankle. "Olly olly oxenfre--"

Hacker let go.

His three-hundred pound body fell and slammed onto Haskell in the dirt, knocking the wind out of him with a dry groan. The smoke dissipated and the imps came to.

“Come on!” Hacker shouted as he offered his hand to them, magnetite gun in the other. “Get up!” Byte and Pixel's eyes glittered as they received his solid grasp raising them to their feet. Haskell wheezed and writhed on the ground.

Seeming to have his cognition back, Hacker picked them both up and bolted for the Wreaker. Discardia was no mystery to a villain with lots of failed experiments to dispose of.

They made it back to the Wreaker and Hacker pulled a small device from his pocket to bring the boarding stairway down to them. Hacker screamed at the damage that had been done to his ship, debris and shattered glass from broken devices strewn about, but quickly composed himself.

Hacker took control of the cockpit, a button bringing the glowing LEDS on the dashboard to life and a switch making the engine roar like a ferocious beast. The pain in his backside from landing on Haskell began to subside but still stabbed him with every movement.

“Come on, you infernal…” grumbled Hacker, the rest unintelligible through the sound of the Wreaker. He cursed himself for not creating a way to pilot the Wreaker remotely, but such humility gave way to blaming the duncebuckets to soothe his ego. Where were they, anyway?

Finally the Wreaker lifted into the air. Through the windshield he could see Haskell lagging behind to catch them, nearly doubled over in fatigue before stopping. Instead, he changed his mind and limped towards his luxury sports cybercoupe.

Hacker rushed to bring out the claw, controlling it like a skill crane pro as opposed to Turing’s clumsy play. He grabbed the pristine white vehicle, not a single scratch or speck of dirt on its surface.

Haskell jumped in a panicked attempt to get Hacker to put it down, but the latter grinned. “I love stealing toys from brats.” Even after hanging onto life by the skin of his teeth, Hacker would take glee in mischief.

Hacker spun the robotic arm, gaining momentum with every rotation. The sports car flew across the atmosphere as if it were no more than a cheap trinket thrown in a child’s tantrum, slamming into a pile of junk front-end first and compressing like a cyberburpie can. As the clash rang out, Haskell convulsed in a fit of scorching rage, his emoticon-like eyes undercutting any power in the gesture.

“See you never, hound dog!” Hacker teased through the Wreaker Speaker™, patent pending. Byte and Pixel cheered, though the former flinched at his pain and sat down. The jets on the rear of the Wreaker combusted, hurling them through Cyberspace.

Hacker itched to show Cyberspace his fatherly prowess all throughout the evening, but assessing the state of his ship took top priority. No, punishing his pathetic excuses for minions for allowing this to happen was the first. He set the Wreaker on autopilot with the Northern Frontier as his destination, making way towards his lab. A jolt of realization that he'd left the Mean Mobile behind struck him, but he'd installed a series of complex security measures to prevent hotwiring. He'd just have to hope Haskell doesn't try to take revenge for the whole demolition derby thing.

A sound yanked Hacker out of his contemplation. Something like plastic or vinyl stretching, though the source he couldn’t determine…

With a yelp, Hacker fell to the floor, bumrushed by two dentheads covered in duct tape. The gun clanked and slid across the tile. “Get off of me, idiots!”

Buzz and Delete tried to speak, but they appeared to have been gagged with a cloth of some sort. Hacker ripped it off, then unfurled the damp garment with a tinge of sage in his shocked face. “This is…”

Delete gasped for air. “Your unmentionables, baws! Wait, am I in trouble for mentioning them? Please don’t hurt me!” He shrieked, his voice on the verge of sobs.

Byte gasped. “Cute!”

“No. Way. I’m high. I smoked some top shelf Solarian black tar beep-boop and I’m hallucinating all of this. Yep,” Pixel said, disbelief crossing with manic pleasure at the sight. Lace. The aspiring king of eternal chaos, suffering and darkness had black silk briefs with lace bordering the seams.

“GAH!” Hacker growled as he tossed the offending article across the room. “And you! You pusillanimous paperweight…”

Byte flashed a confused glare at Pixel, mouthing pusillanimous. The other simply shrugged.

Hacker ripped the gag from Buzz’s massive maw, and out of it spilled at least twenty-five stuffed animals of all colors, now soaked in saliva. “No, no, NO!!!! Not Joseph Stallion! And Chairman Meow?! I could fix a few broken devices, but you can’t replace sentiment! You’ll pay for this!”

“Baws, it’s not our fault! That guy completely blindsided us!!” Buzz said.

“Yeah, he came ta’ the hangar offerin’ a special deal on your Unzip magazine subscription for just pennies a day ta’ benefit local orphanages!” Delete added.

“DEE DEE!” Buzz admonished.

“What?!”

“GET OUT OF MY SIGHT, TINWITS!!” Hacker bellowed, his face a deep emerald as droplets of saliva misted the two of them and knocked them backwards with the sound. Buzz and Delete scrambled to their feet and ran away screaming, still covered in tape. A high-pitched squeak of the latter’s shoes slipping made them all cringe as he face planted and quickly started sprinting again.

Hacker fumed without a word until a strangled snort crackled in the air.

“Looks like he got so salty he’s pickled,” Pixel said, and with a wheeze, the two imps curled up beside themselves in hysteria.

Hacker lunged towards them. “You–”

They howled in laughter, drowning him out and gripping one another as they gasped for air.

“I will NOT tolerate–”

“So dumb!” Byte yelped between laughs. “My face hurts–owowowow…” He said, clasping his foot.

“It’s not even that funn-ee-hee-hee!” Pixel squealed, face red and scrunched, his form tearing and phasing as he glitched. Tears pricked the pair’s eyes.

“I know, it’s the way you said it!” Byte choked, beginning to cough, still smiling violently. “ ‘M gonna throw up!”

“Okay, I’m not entertaining your attempts to provoke me,” Hacker said. “My psychiatrist taught me about the wiles of instigators such as yourselves. I’m simply going to close my eyes until you’re finished.”

“PSYCHIATRIST?!” Pixel wailed, and another peal erupted from them both, pounding the floor.

Hacker ground his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut. “I breathe in the calm…and exhale the toxic…” he rasped under his breath. The imps continued to wail and roar, though it began to slow down. “This feeling will pass, like clouds…annoying, snot-nosed little clouds…”

Byte and Pixel’s laughter simmered down to low pants and gasps, and soon enough they didn’t make any noise at all.

Hacker opened an eye inquisitively, then they both popped open with a grin. “The doc’s soppy hogwash worked! They’re dead!”

“Boss…” Byte creaked out with a shaky arm reaching toward him. “Re…charge…”

“Please…” Pixel groaned, his body as limp as a corpse on the ground.

Hacker gave them a cheshire smirk. “That’s what you get for making light of Thee Hacker, sweetcheeks,” he said in a sugary taunt. “Now perish.”

“Nn…wait…” Byte mumbled.

“Bye-bye!”

“Thank…you…”

Hacker paused.

“For savin’ us from him…you’re really…strong…” Byte just barely smiled, his small frame and voice shaking. “I was…so scared…but…knowin’ someone came back for me…I could be brave…even if we don’ like each other…”

Hacker stood, his legs deciding to up and leave for a moment and then come back again. “...I…I suppose I have you to thank as well. If it weren’t for that voice of yours, I would have been long dead. Cyberspace is well within my grasp now.” His face hardened. “Then again, it was you and your little friend that got me into this mess. Not to mention the gash on my gorgeous neck…”

Byte didn’t respond, the smile replaced by a slack jaw. Both of their frail bodies were soulless as dolls, appendages bent in unnatural positions.

Hacker heaved one of them over each shoulder with barely a grunt in complaint and set them down in his recharger chair, big enough to fit them both even as they laid with their heads lolled off to either side. With the press of a button, a soft dot of blue light glimmered beneath the creamy skin of their necks.

Hacker crouched to appraise Byte’s ankle as he pulled down his bow-adorned knee sock, now filthy with dirt. His lip curled in revulsion as he held the dirty sneaker, but he rubbed a handheld device with a roller ball against the angry red swelling until it subsided and lifted the sock back up to the knee. He shuddered and sanitized his hands. About five minutes later, their eyes fluttered open.

“Have a nice nap, cheese weasels?” Hacker said. “Get up. It’s my turn.” Fatigue weighed down on him like an anchor, his body still aching from the trauma.

So they got up. “Hey, that was kinda nice a’ you to let us recharge first,” Byte said. “Hey! My ankle’s all better!”

“Yes, how touching, and nothing to do with not wanting two hunks of metal rusting on my floor,” Hacker said as he sat down and activated the chair. “And who cares? Now shoo.”

“But we dunno our way around here,” Pixel said.

“Fine, stay here, but leave me be! Go play princesses or whatever girls your age do.”

Pixel snorted. “You really don’t know anything about women, do ya, twinklebutt?”

“Oh, so now you’re reclaiming your female identity so you can one-up a 'male chauvinist pig' like me, huh?”

“Hey, if the shoe fits,” she said. “Boy yesterday, girl today…tomorrow, who knows?”

“A llama!” Byte blurted.

Pixel did just that, growing into the fluffy 6-foot-tall animal with a swirl of colors. “I’m so baa-aa-aa-aa-aack,” she pretended to bleat before turning back to normal.

“That’s a sheep’s cry, you imbecile,” Hacker said with a sigh. “You know what? Forget the Wreaker for now. My inauguration is on the horizon. I’ve just bravely defied death. This calls for a celebratio–”

“PANTY RAID.” Byte said immediately.

“SPREADING MISINFORMATION.” Pixel added without missing a beat.

“No,” Hacker said. “I’d hold a ball if it weren’t on such short notice! I think an intimate but elaborate feast is appropriate for now. There will be plenty of time to commemorate my greatness once I become leader of Cyberspace tomorrow.”

“A feast?” Byte repeated.

Hacker held his chin high and smiled smugly. “The Hacker’s inaugural feast! Hosted by The Hacker! With entertainment by…The Hacker! With planned conversation praising The Hacker! Catered by none other than—you guessed it—Chef The Hacker!”

“Aw, sweet! I could totally use some spammage to grind right now,” Pixel said.

Hacker chuckled. “Oh, you won’t just be sitting on your tin cans while I do all of the work. You’re going to help me cook!”

Pixel’s gaze looked away and narrowed. “Have we cooked before?”

“Oh, you don’t need to cook,” Hacker said as his eyes darkened, interlacing his fingers. “You’ll be playing the role of the in~gre~die~nts~!☆”

Byte and Pixel’s irises shrunk to mere dots.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!” They wailed, making Hacker cringe.

“I KNEW IT!! I KNEW HE’D CUT US UP INTO CUBES AND EAT US!!” Byte shrieked.

“Silence! I’m a despot, not a cannibal, you fools! It was a joke. But those faces were priceless!” He laughed a deep, hearty kind of laugh that made his cheeks swell. His brows still furrowed with derision, but something about this one just seemed more authentic. “Come on now! That’s just cliché.”

Byte and Pixel deflated with relief.

“But don’t press your luck,” he said with a wink.

“Alright, I’ve got Buzz and Delete on decorations, now you chop these up for the non-Euclidean veggie casserole,” Hacker said, placing a platter of cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli, onion, and artichokes in front of them along with two knives.

“These are vegetables? I haven’t seen a fresh one in ages,” Pixel said.

“You lied, Pixel! Artichokes aren’ fruit!” Byte said.

“Well, don’t just stare at them, cut them up!” Hacker barked, storming off to the other side of the Grim Wreaker’s kitchen to work on the holographic meatloaf.

But Byte and Pixel did stare blankly at the veggies, holding the knife blade up. Byte held the knife by the blade, letting the handle hang awkwardly.

“Okay…here I go…” Pixel said tentatively, giving the knife a few practice swings. “KYAHHHHHH!” She cried while slamming the blade into a cabbage, mutilating it into several irregular pieces.

“Am I doin’ it right?” Byte said as he gave a head of broccoli teeny-tiny stabs, still holding it by the blade.

“Most certainly not!” Hacker bellowed as he stomped towards them. “Do I really have to spell everything out for you two?”

“Erm…yeah, you might,” Pixel said. “We’ve never done any of this stuff before.”

“Drifters don’ cut veggies,” Byte said.

“Well, these ones do…or else,” He scoffed with a sigh. “Let the master show you how it’s done.” He diced up an onion into geometrically impossible cubes with rapid blade taps like a drumroll. “S-see? E-even an ape could d-do it,” he said, holding back tears and sniffing as his eyes burned.

“I know you’re goin’ through a lot right now,” Byte teased with a rub of Hacker’s back.

“Zip it,” Hacker said as he swatted him away. “Now, you do it.”

“Me? Uh…” Pixel said, perspiration beginning to form as a flash of heat ravaged her body just looking at the confusing shapes. “Um…”

“ARGH! Must I do everything myself?!” Hacker said, taking her hands in his own with the knife and guiding her dainty hands with his bigger ones. He had his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and that treacherous forest of hair snaked around his forearms. That same smoky aroma returned, making Pixel’s insides churn uneasily. He could easily overpower her and chop all of those petite digits right off if he felt like it.

Byte scrutinized Hacker. Seeing this wannabe tyrant he’d saved just hours earlier cooking like anyone else, in an apron no less, was surreal to say the least. Byte had wanted nothing more than to see the heartless ogre bite the curb earlier that day. Yet, for some reason, hatred was unfathomable. The word “pity” crossed his mind, but he knew Hacker deserved nor needed any of it. All he knew was that seeing the man suffer made him suffer, despite himself.

“Like this. Use your index finger on the dull side of the blade to steady it. Guard your fingers from the blade with your nails. Cut it into about quarter-cyberinch pieces—do you know how big that is?—good. Why didn’t I just steal some takeout…” he grumbled under his breath. The rich, aged bass and gravelly texture of his voice caused haunting electric tingles to slither down from Pixel’s horns all the way down her neck and spine to the end of her star-tipped tail, her breath hitching at the sensation.

A hot flood of shame washed over Byte seeing the ascot wrapped around Hacker’s neck. The sounds of vomit splattering the ground, of Hacker choking on it, echoed in his head. Haskell had subjected them to horrific things before, but that day they stared Hell directly in the face as it laughed.

Pixel could practically feel her code mapping the new terrain of his manicured green fingers; masculine, yet immaculately groomed. Warm. Firm. Secure. Her eyes began to sting and water.

Hacker took his hands off. “There. Was that a good enough demonstration for you, or do I have to slave over everything here?”

Byte snapped out of his trance and chopped away cheerfully at an artichoke. “I think I got it! Okie-dokie…lemon smokie…! Hehe…”

Pixel felt as if she were attempting to swallow a baseball whole—gulping furiously to get it down but unable to shake the unbearable tightness in her throat. Her face twisted into a grimace, squeezing every muscle together to prevent an inexplicable maelstrom of heaviness from sinking her into the tile. She nearly melted into the countertop, her body becoming garbled artifacts, dropping the knife with a metal clatter.

“Pixel…” Byte cooed sympathetically.

Trying to keep her breathing steady felt like drowning. A choked sob broke out, leading to a cascade of heaving and stuttered mewls that escaped through her teeth despite attempting to keep her mouth locked shut. Hot tears stained the maple board.

“Oh come on, the onion can’t be that bad,” Hacker said, turning away. “Get a wet rag and pull yourself together.”

“Yeah…” Pixel croaked out, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve…just uh…I’ve never cut one before…so…”

“What’s wrong, Pix?” Byte said. “Well…’sides everything else going wrong today.”

“Nothin’,” she said, trembling. “Don’t try and read my thoughts. Just…get me a rag, okay?”

“No, somethin’s wrong. I can feel it.”

“I said don’t read my mind, okay!? Please! Let me have this…” Pixel snapped, voice warbling with desperation. “I’m sorry…I’m so weak…”

“It’s okay,” Byte said, grabbing a cloth from the drawer and giving it a rinse under the sink. “It’s fine to be weak sometimes, right?”

Pixel shook her head, wiping her eyes with the damp towel. “I doubted you until the very end, and you ended up saving me…I ran away instead of fighting…I didn’t deserve it at all…”

“Hey now,” Byte said, gently hugging her. “I doubted m’self, too. But y’know what? I’m gonna keep singing ‘till it reaches everyone who needs ta’ hear it. No matter what.” He smiled brightly, baring his fangs with pride. He looked back at Hacker, who manipulated a hologram into something hopefully edible, concentration furrowing his brow.

Pixel’s heart soared at the glow in her friend’s cheeks. “Good,” she said, trying to smile, but thorns still pricked her core.

Cutting onions in a warm kitchen, feeling a man’s hands guiding her own seemed so…simple. Between the cruelty and deception, she lost herself for a few moments in simulated family bonding that day. That small respite from the hollowness that usually rested in her soul gutted her with newfound nostalgia and shame for indulging in its lies. Just a moment of weakness, that’s all it was.

Those few fleeting moments felt like happiness, but…different. It didn’t make her cheeks hurt with euphoria or make her heart race with excitement from the risk. It didn’t feel self-satisfied in tormenting someone. It just stood still like sunlight filtering into a dark room, warm and colorful.